


Over, Protected

by KaranSeraph



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil, Aim For The Legs, Ancient Order of Protectors, Archaic Weapon For An Advanced Age, Blind Weaponmaster, Blind-Mute Interaction, Bounty Hunters, Captivity, Combiner Wars, Cyber Ninja, Dark Past, Disability Superpower, Five-Girl Band, Flashbacks, Gen, Hot For Zen Master, Law, Lovetopia, Marriage of Convenience, Ninja, Ninja School, Non-Human Trans Character, Project Nightbird, Rigel 6, Rigel Star System, Rule of Cool, Shinobu (Moon), Signed Language, Sixth Ranger, Space Amazons, Spaceships, Sparks, Tea, Titan Hunters, What Happens in Lovetopia Stays in Lovetopia, accidental proposal, just hold me, robot gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaranSeraph/pseuds/KaranSeraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quintessons hire Lockdown's team of former Titan Hunters to retrieve 'merchandise' once carried by a Titan, and which is revealed to be under the protection of the ancient Cybertronain Yoketron, at his hidden dojo on the distant moon of Shinobu. Master Yoketron's students must combine their abilities to protect and, if need be, recover their precious cargo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lockdown takes a business call. Master Yoketron's students are assigned some duty changes.

SIX MONTHS AGO, GIVE OR TAKE

If there was one thing Lockdown was good at – besides hunting and saving his own spark – it was making an entrance. He strode into the local oil house equivalent on the arm of a miniskirt clad freighter captain, with his entourage of hulking Insecticons and former gladiators just behind, like his own Heavy Brigade. Patrons stirred, their eyes and optics rising to the occasion as it were; a couple of real nice pairs of spectacles among them. Whispers, laser comms, and manual communication picked-up carried a consensus of galactic gossip: Galactic Council, Kill Switches, Titans, Cybertron. It meant: Lockdown was out of a job, for now.

“May I buy you a drink?” Captain Talleah asked.

“Free passage and a drink? A mechanism might think they were starting to owe ya.”

“My cargo was never safer, from piracy,” Talleah said, head inclined toward an empty table.

Lockdown turned quickly to the group at his back. “I’m gonna have a sit-down with Captain Talleah. Venom, make sure Chop Shop doesn’t take anything.”

“Why? Are we being watched?”

“Perhaps ze bar?” Lugnut’s cool-headed teammate offered helpfully.

At the table, Talleah gestured to the scantly-armored Femaxian behind the bar, while Lockdown’s crew of former Titan Hunters took seats there. “If you are looking for work, the First One sometimes grants contracts to off-worlders, when the politics on other worlds are _unfavorable_ to my people.”

“Honestly, I’m in the market-” Lockdown was interrupted by a ping from his comm unit. “Can I take this?” Lockdown’s forearm transformed with a _whirr-click_ , revealing a holo-projector.

“It might be business. I’ll go get the drinks,” Talleah excused herself.

A small holographic projection of a bulbous-headed, tentacled being appeared. “You are Lockdown, Leader of a Decepticon Titan Hunter group, yes?”

“Was. Don’t know if you heard, but what Titans were left are back on Cybertron now, or else scrapped for parts.”

“We do not require a Titan, merely your expertise in hunting and retrieving merchandise once carried by a Titan.”

Talleah returned with the drinks, and sat down. She pushed a cylindrical glass encrusted with yellow-green crystals along the rim.

“ _Expertise_ doesn’t come cheap, and let’s say I’m not looking to get in bed with any _judiciary_ authorities after my team’s last job.”

Talleah tipped her head curiously at the overheard statement.

“We can provide you with a ship.”

Lockdown lifted his glass and took a sip of sweet engex as it ran over the savory lead-sulfide crystals. “I’m listening,” he replied then.

“Are you familiar with a Cybertronian designated Yoketron?” The Quintesson asked.

Lockdown set his glass heavily to the table. “Never heard of him.”

\-------------------------

PRESENT

Radia ducked her head under the pole in her hands until she felt it lock into the notch between her wingstems and shoulders. She straightened her legs, as she looked from one side to the other, to check the pair of hanging buckets. The pole bowed as Radia stood, but held the weight of the graywater that sloshed in the buckets. Radia frowned behind her mouthplate; she should be able to carry the load without loss or sound. Stormgale or Moonshadow could do it, and Slipwire would at least be able to explain the theory of how it should work.

Radia put one foot in front of the other and walked from the wash closet into the corridor. She concentrated on achieving that elusive balance of _movement_ and _stillness_ that Master Yoketron expected of every student of the dojo. To Radia, it felt as if every footfall warped the very fabric of space.

She heard rattling percussion coming from one of the long exhibition halls as she passed. It was music to which Stormgale or Stabdash could have been practicing, but, as Radia took a wide path past the thin door, the clustered energy signatures informed her it was both: performing a demonstration for junior ranked students.

Radia continued along the corridor, swaying in an effort to keep the water still, as she carried it with her though space. She came to the sliding doors that led to the rear garden, moved close, and then shifted weight to one foot, to pry at the narrow gap between doors, with the edge of her raised foot.

As Radia attempted to force the manual release, she saw Slipwire approach from the direction of the recharge cells. Radia took one hand from the pole to snap her fingers: “NO,” but the lithe cycle-bot grinned, twisted between Radia’s legs, pried open the door, and exited onto the covered walkway.

Radia moved through the gap, cursing herself silently as the final bucket swung far enough to sound the chime that meant she’d triggered the motion sensor over the door.

Outside, Slipwire was already moving through the tall cylindrical collectors of the dojo’s small energon farm. Firepowder was there, leaning over an open reservoir to take a sample.

Radia stepped down from the planked walkway onto the raked gravel garden path and then jogged lightly to the nearest garden bed. Radia bent to lower her buckets. As she looked back up, a glint of shifting light drew her attention to the horizon beyond. A compact figure was silhouetted there against the trio of setting blue-white suns, which reflected still off Rigel VIII and projected the gas giant’s ghost into the thin atmosphere of Shinobu where their dojo was hidden.

Radia vented a sigh, as she tipped the buckets. Graywater seeped into the bed of crystals and mosses.

Moonshadow moved from her vigil over the boundaries of the grounds and walked toward the Dojo, approaching Radia as well as the energon collectors. Her silhouette resolved into a bot in purple armor as she neared the garden bed. Radia picked up her two empty buckets with one hand, and the pole in the other. As she stood again, Moonshadow passed with a glance.

“You want some engex, Moonshadow?” Firepowder called.

Radia put the buckets and pole along the raised walkway, then fell into step with her shorter teammate as Firepowder offered a ladle.

“TIME PAST SMALL,” Radia signed with quick movements of pale digits in Moonshadow’s periphery.

“There hasn’t been time for the current batch to properly distill,” Moonshadow stated.

Radia gestured an explosion, shutters irising out to widen optics, and brows quizzing upward.

Firepowder tracked the movement, still holding the ladle outward. “Of course it’s volatile, but it’s safe.” She pulled the ladle back towards her mouth and drank.

“The trick is the ladle,” Slipwire added.

“I DRINK,” Radia signed, shaping her hand to indicate use of the ladle. She took it by the handle as it was passed to her, then stepped in even closer to look down into the open reservoir. She could see through the pink liquid to the interior workings of the dispenser below.

“Don’t dip, skim from the top,” Firepowder suggested.

Radia commanded her mouthplate to retract, then drank. The engex was thin and light, nearly vaporous. She shaped one hand like a winged vehicle and gestured the direction of upward flight.

Firepowder smiled, enameled lip components as bright as the rest of her flame deco. Beside her, Slipwire gunned her cycle motor. Radia put the ladle in front of Moonshadow, as she slid the plating back over her mouth.

Moonshadow was just slightly shorter than Slipwire, even if carrying a little more mass in her racing frame and extended her legs as far as possible to gain clearance to look down into the resvoir. She took a sip from the ladle. Almost immediately her expression contorted in distaste. “Too sweet.”

“ _Pfft_. You can drink crude,” Slipwire teased.

The door chimed, indicating someone else had failed in stealth today. Radia waved as she saw one of the junior squad step out onto the walkway.

“Artfire,” Firepowder acknowledged, “Is movement class over?”

“What?” He shook his head. “I was with Master Yoketron.” His grimace said this was likely out of need for extra training after some misstep. “He’s sent for Radia and Moonshadow.”

“We’ll report straight away,” Moonshadow promised for them both.

Radia went to collect her buckets. She heard footsteps on the gravel and knew it was Slipwire; she was being purposely noisy, though Radia wasn’t certain why. “Music later?” she asked.

Radia nodded. “I LIKE.”

Moonshadow passed quickly at Radia’s left side, taking the pole as she did.

They followed Artfire back inside and met with Stormgale in the corridor outside the dojo’s advanced level training room. “Master asked for all five of us?” Stormgale asked, dim visor turned ceilingward. Radia registered the additional energy signature too late. The diminutive bot dropped from the ceiling onto Radia’s back.

“Yoketron finally gonna name team leaders?” Stabdash asked, then leapt from Radia’s shoulder, folded into her little helicopter alt and hovered.

“It will be no surprise who he picks,” Stormgale said.

“It might,” Moonshadow disagreed.

Radia pushed on the doors and they slid open with a slight hiss. Within, Master Yoketron knelt on the planked flooring. The four who had been summoned entered the room; Stormgale spun the turbines on her wings and powered down near as quickly, sending her dance scarves before her to read air and obstacles.

“I did not call you here to assign leadership. If you do not each realize your roles, soon, then I may have to give one or two of you a hint.”

“We know who our squad’s leader is, Master,” Stormgale insisted as the group knelt facing their master.

“No,” Moonshadow said flatly. “Excuse me, Master, I do not believe we are agreed.”

“Radia,” Master Yoketron spoke softly, “what do you think on this matter?”

Radia lifted her hands, “LEADER RELUCTANT.” She narrowed her optics, as she lifted one brow.

“A fair insight,” Yoketron agreed. “True _mastery_ of any of our arts takes a lifetime, but each of you has advanced in your learning that you may soon be your own best _teachers_. Structured classes are one path in our journey toward mastery, as are inner and outer quests. It is my decision that each of you take-up new duties.”

Master Yoketron paused, allowing each of his disciples to consider his words.

“Yes, Master,” Moonshadow said, first. Radia made a hand-nod as Artfire and Stormgale also spoke their acknowledgement.

“Artfire, from now you will lead novices in their instruction. Moonshadow, you will observe Artfire’s methods and then offer guidance. Stormgale, you will assist me in all sanctuary and vigil duties. Radia, tell me, what task do you believe this leaves you.”

“CLASS JUNIOR HAVE TEACHERS FEW.”

“Exactly. To begin, you will take the Junior Squad on a training quest. Remain with me to discuss details. Artfire, Stormgale, Moonshadow, you may leave first.”

Master Yoketron spoke to Radia then: “Take Firepowder and Stabdash, and of course your Cyber-hawk if you like, and lead the Juniors in a training quest to refuel the _Karakuri_. Take as much of the new batch of energon as you can carry. Leave before noon tomorrow.”

Radia found Stormgale waiting in the corridor outside. She reached for her hands to pose a question chirolinguistically, but Stormgale drew her hands into the scarves wrapping her forearms. “You don’t need to speak. Just listen. I heard, but it was not intentional eavesdropping any more then when you do it. You trust my etiquette.”  

This was true. Radia tapped her foot once.

“I didn’t understand why Master Yoketron would pick me to assist him when you’re the most in-tune with your spark-” Radia tried to interrupt by tapping her foot twice. “And then I realized how he makes his choices.”

Radia purposely vented air through her jets to make a whining sigh.

“You will figure it out, because you’ve been here longer than any of us, watching _and_ listening. I apologize for my recent arguments with Moonshadow. I was wrong about our leader. I will admit my fault to her, but I needed to let you know.”

Radia pointed a hand towards the intersection of corridors and then slipped one hand over the other.

“Slipwire,” Stormgale said.

“You’re getting good if you knew it was me,” Slipwire said, slinking around the corner.

“I heard Radia’s sign for you.”

“SPARK,” Radia signed over her chest.

“Radia says-”

“I knew.”

Radia played a recorded music file through her external speakers. Slipwire grinned, as Stormgale began to sway in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of inspiration and enabling went into this:  
> -The idea for female, ninja-themed, combiner team came from the Audio Knights Theatre: http://theaudioknightstheatre.com/2015/01/fan-built-combiner/  
> -My work for the team was previously posted to twitter and tumblr, mainly in this post: http://karanseraph.tumblr.com/post/111323821044/karanseraph-i-did-more-work-on-team-nightbird  
> -Much of Stormgale's mannerisms, blindness, and use of scarves were inspired by a character in the movie House of Flying Daggers.  
> -I had several helpful online friends that enabled me to continue writing the original characters.  
> -twitter personality TruStarscreamer came up with the name for Yoketron's ship.  
> -Title is inspired by Britney Spears song 'Overprotected', which I listened to way too many times while writing.  
> -Talleah homages a character from 50's Sci-fi movie Queen of Outer Space, who was one of civilization of females who opposed her leader's segregation.  
> -The way in which I'm glossing Radia's sign language is loosely based on ASL structure, because that's a language I've studied, but is not intended to accurately represent any real-world form of manual communication.  
> -Information on the Rigel star system is a composite of real-world info, as well as Transformers and Star Trek lore.  
> -Obviously, the whole setting is based in IDW Transformers comics continuity.  
> -Also, obviously, I hope, the Lockdown being hired to steal from Yoketron plot is lifted from Transformers Animated.  
> -Lockdown being hired by hired by Quintessons may or may not be what happened in Transformers Age of Extinction.


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lockdown, with new and improved ship and crew continues tracking the whereabouts of Yoketron, meanwhile the Cyber-ninjas go about their duties, unaware there are those willing to report them as missing to Lockdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: apparent self-harm, misgendering. Please see end notes if you need further info on content.

His ship had last been registered in Quintesson, its designation The Magisterial Ship _Deathly Countenance_ ; its current crew called it the _Death’s Head_. It perched in a controlled freefall above Rigel IV, with nacelles shifted opposite the large, terrestrial planet’s gravity well, like a gnarled crown atop a scarred face. The signs of extermination left from a recent phase of the Cybertronian Civil War were visible from space: lifeless tracts of scorched earth, black shadows, like the one who had wrought them.

The interiors of the ship, were, like the exterior, black, or very, very dark gray, and cast in greenish light. Lockdown didn’t know if the color was intentional or simply accumulation of ages of spilled fluids; it suited him either way. He walked along a corridor now, with an away team trailing behind, on his way to the aft section where the pair of drop ships docked.

The _Widowmaker_ was still docking as Lockdown entered, a draft pulled assorted detritus toward the bay doors, before the force shields and doors closed on the red and black ship. In the adjacent dock was its frame-twin, _Red Swan_ , a prow-heavy, rust-brown beauty Lockdown had been customizing himself.

They’d been hunting Yoketron near half a stellar cycle, and picking up as many jobs and upgrades as they could along the way. Lockdown didn’t trust the Quintessons, but they’d found his price, and he was determined not to lose his ship or any other promised rewards in a double cross. He’d had all the techs he could buy or trust go over the _Death’s Head_ to the last detail, and added not a few customizations himself.

The cargo ramp lowered and the incoming team of Femaxians, and Vehicon troopers pushing hover palettes stacked with supplies, disembarked.

“Any trail on Rigel V?” Lockdown asked.

Talleah shook her head, dark hair swaying. “The Rigelians are a most curious race, I don’t know how they get any work done all living together.”

“FIVE,” one of the troopers signaled to Venom, at Lockdown’s right, holding up as many digits.

Lockdown rubbed his faceplate, tired of this game the Vehicons and Insecticons played with the Femaxians. He didn’t care how many genders or sexes any alien race had, or who was in charge, only whether they honored contracts.

“Three makes some sense,” Venom whispered, “You can have worker-drones, like wasps. Why do they need five?”

Talleah noticed some part of the exchange and smacked the trooper’s hand with the back of her sword. “No sign of Yoketron, but our contacts confirmed previous intel,” she continued, “The 4thand 6th planets have the largest populations of mechanisms within the system, some few can be found on the 2nd and 3rd planets living among organics. They mentioned a place in the outer moons: Lovetopia?”

“We’ll look there next if there’s no joy on this next meeting. I’m taking a team to the surface to see a Decepticon contact,” Lockdown told the returning crew, “Blitz has command ‘til we’re back. Rest of you are relieved to go through decon.”

\---------------

Ahead, Radia gestured a signal for the group to halt. Stabdash decelerated to make a slow descent and touched her energon canister to the rocky ground. She disengaged her cargo clamps, ascended away from the canister, then unfolded into bot-form. She dropped neatly to the ground, landing on her feet.

Around her, the five present members of the junior rank squad were setting down canisters on various harnesses and frames, or stretching their limbs after their hike. Firepowder, ahead with Radia, had turned her emergency stretcher into a cart. Radia was still removing straps and canisters – five of them -and as Stabdash watched, she turned to pull two more out of an internal compartment.

“How’s about we drive the next leg?” Ox suggested.

“Speak for yourself,” Counter Arrow said, and oh so archly, “I’m not designed to carry cargo in either mode.”

“Who cares how you were designed?” Stabdash snapped. She regretted it immediately.

Radia sighed. She couldn’t vocalize language, but she could make sounds with her body much as the next bot. Stabdash figured intentional ones like this were usually warnings. Radia didn’t sign to answer the juniors, or to correct Stabdash she just sat down near her cargo and assumed a posture for meditation.

Stabdash followed the example. If Yoketron sent you on an optics quest, it was usually some kind of test or challenge and he didn’t want you back until you figured out whatever lesson he’d planned for you to learn. This probably applied as much to leaders or chaperones as less experienced students of their arts. She’d learned this from experience. There were times when she’d made this same hike on feet.

“Let’s mediate on that,” Firepowder said calmly. Stabdash didn’t look, because she was genuinely trying to reach out with her other senses like their master taught, but she _sensed_ enough of a pause that Firepowder might have checked with Radia on the subject. “Whatever our origins, wherever we came from, or what functions others assigned us, we are all Cyber-ninja now. We may not have come to the path in the same way, but we walk it together. Sometimes we forge ahead of others on the journey, and other times we accept the directions of one who has travelled ahead.”

Stabdash laughed. “Sorry,” she whispered, “Your wise words touched my emotional subroutines.”

“As intended,” Firepowder whispered, impervious to Stabdash’s bitter tone.

Stabdash smiled as she tried again to clear her mind and become one with her surroundings. Flashes of old memory looped through her processor, but gradually, these receded. Stabdash felt the hardness and coolness of the rocky terrain. She heard the hum and rumble of online Cybertronian shells and tried to still her body as much as possible. She thought, maybe, she sensed the radiation of Rigel VIII crackling across her energy field, and tried to will her field to contract within her shell.

The sound of an engex dispensing brought Stabdash out of meditation. She saw Radia preparing rations. Stabdash was surprised when Radia brought her the first cube, the gesture usually meant the recipient had best completed a specific task. Ox received the next, then Firepowder, Eagle Killer, X-Car, Wicked Attack, and Counter Arrow. The junior squad was plagued with silly names; Stabdash didn’t know if it was because they came from the same ship or colony or that they’d been forced by circumstance to choose their own.

Mediation over, Stabdash walked over to Ox. He was seated, and still she had to look up to meet his optics. “Your alt-form has a cargo bed.”

“Yeah.”

“But you can’t load it yourself.”

“Oh,” he said, with that tone of self-discovery Yoketron had often pushed Stabdash into using.

Stabdash grinned. “What if I loaded it for you? Then, would you drive?”

Ox took a long sip as he considered the question. “But, Firepowder’s a truck. And Radia’s got a cockpit and cabin. Why don’t they?”

“Good question.”

Ox looked around, optics seeming to stay longer focused on Counter Arrow, the only one of them with no cargo capacity in alt-mode. “Why do you?” he asked.

Stabdash shrugged her shoulders. “I asked myself that question.”

“Oh!”

\-------------------

The _Red Swan_ seemed to glide down toward the silvery lake of toxic run-off, a rust-brown ship with red solar sails. Lockdown, at the controls, banked north from the cratered basin to the nearby outpost of Tarnish, with its angular constructs in cool-toned alloys.

Since Phase 6 had been visited upon Rigel IV, its organic population had been near-annihilated and a Decepticon presence maintained. Lockdown disembarked with Lugnut, Venom, and Ransack, leaving Barrage to guard their ship.

They were greeted by Bacchus and an equal escort near the doors leading into the tallest building.

“Lockdown,” Bacchus said, knowing him perhaps by reputation, if not solely from Lugnut’s earlier contact.

“We greet you in the name of our glorious leader Megatron,” Lugnut spoke loudly.

“Don’t know about that,” Bacchus sneered.

“Lugnut, check the perimeter,” Lockdown suggested. He waited for the former gladiator to move before continuing. “Autobot-Megatron truther,” Lockdown said with a tip of his head, “I trust you’re loyal _enough_ to the cause to provide some information.”

“Loyal to the cause as you. What’s my cut?”

Lockdown chuckled. “You wanna cut?” he asked, brandishing his hook, then added, “Don’t bother signaling your sniper. I left _Barrage_ on the ship, and I just had her upgraded with Deckard cannons.”

Venom, twitchier than usual at the mention of sniper panned his weapon over Bacchus and his guards, while Ransack asked, “You want I should hurt them?”

Bacchus laughed. “Lockdown! Let’s talk business. I’ll scratch your feet, you scratch mine!”

Lockdown lifted his hook to scratch his faceplate at the curious idiom. “Ya told Lugnut you might have a lead on Yoketron.”

“I never met _Yoketron_ ,” Bacchus said, then quickly continued, “but, there’s this character the refugee camp bots call The Master who sounds like he might be your bot.”

“So, you’re saying I’m wasting my time here.”

“I’ve got another angle,” Bacchus promised, “’Round the time we had one of our more physical altercations with the charity types in the camps, one of our group went missing.”

Lockdown laughed and looked to Venom to see if he was still listening, but Venom hadn’t quite yet seemed to make the connection. “Bacchus, if we’re talking about a Decepticon deserter, that’s someone else’s _list_.”

“You said you only did that work for Megatron!” Venom reminded Lockdown. Weren’t like he needed anybot to remind him about Deadlock, or his Circle of Light pals.

“So don’t keep him,” Bacchus suggested, “The aid-bots we questioned have said this Master sometimes recruits followers, usually lower-class bots or ones in trouble-”

“Like Decepticon deserters,” Lockdown surmised.

“He was acting strange even before he went missing. Drops and pick-ups taking too long. Putting in requisitions for personal upgrades.”

One of the guards laughed, “Cut off his own integrated machine gun.”

“That’s the story,” Bacchus added.

Lockdown shrugged. Modding one’s body didn’t seem unusual to him, even if a ‘Con removing integrated weaponry seemed like a downgrade. “From what type of shell? What was the bot’s alt-form?”

“Delivery drone,” Bacchus said, at which some of the guards snickered. “Stabdash was a wee, precious helicopter with cargo clamps and front-mount gun.”

\-----------------

As Lockdown walked back to the _Red Swan_ , he used his gauntlet communicator to contact the _Death’s Head_. “Blitz, tell Talleah to contact the refugee camps planetside. Use the bail bond recovery story and ask after a courier designated Stabdash who may be travelling with a martial arts master.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: content includes mention of apparent self-harm, and misgendering
> 
> Spoiler: In the third section, when Lockdown speaks with Bacchus, there's a brief mention of robotic self-alteration in form of a character who "cut off" integrated weaponry. This same character is also, apparently, misgendered by those speaking in the past tense.
> 
> Other notes:  
> The Juniors are based on the Transformers Spy Changers, here using their Japanese names from Car Robots.  
> The ship here called Death's Head is based on the "Knights Ship" in AoE, while the Red Swan is based on the Animated ship named the Death's Head, both having been Lockdown's ships. Widowmaker, however is more an homage to the AoE Stinger/Widowmaker concept art.  
> Red Swan is intended to follow the tradition of (TFA) Lockdown's things being named after other bounty hunters.


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyber-ninjas exercise stealth. Yoketron makes it clear what types of relationships he is not willing to have with students. Lockdown doesn't quite find what he was looking for in Lovetopia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs I listened to for this chapter:
> 
> A Thousand Kisses Deep by Leonard Cohen  
> Touch by Daft Punk  
> (also some Adele, but that will be more relevant in later chapters)

Talleah waited alone outside the decontamination chamber aboard the _Red Swan_. She could hear the rush of air that signaled the final sequence of the chamber’s cycle. The independent polity of Lovetopia boasted its beauty and peacefulness across subspace comms, and demanded the same from visitors. This meant that, unlike the Femaxians, who made decontamination procedures a habit against alien contagions and contaminants, Lockdown underwent the process because it was required by local authorities.

Finally, he emerged from the chamber. His red machine-eyes seemed to widen. “Were you there the whole time?”

“Nothing I haven’t seen or heard,” Talleah assured him, “Though this is a change from the matte finish.” She smiled at the glossy clear coat.

“Yeah, well, your armor’s flimsier than usual.”

“You noticed,” Talleah laughed, “That’s because this isn’t _armor_.”

Lockdown strode toward the ramp and into the Lovetopian port, where Lugnut, Blitz, Kartika, and Trooper 573 waited, and Talleah kept pace at his right side. “No need to stay together like a gang, but you’re alone with locals at your own risk,” Lockdown told them.

Talleah tipped her head just so to tell the others should would stay with Lockdown, but it was hardly necessary. Lockdown had picked the away team, and the choices in partners were obvious. Blitz and Lugnut went to seek local games and sport, while Kartika and the trooper went walked arm in arm to look for media.

A wide avenue stretched before them: buildings tall, walkways clean, populated by beings of many races, most with artfully painted faces and luxurious appointments. Blue-white starlight filtered through the translucent vault above, and elsewhere there were dim, multi-colored lights. Holo and flat screen billboards advertised Yum-yum juice or local pleasure houses for a variety of pursuits and tastes.

“It’s been a long while since we’ve visited anywhere so clean and peaceful as the Golden Realm.”

“You know what the First One’s peace is built upon,” Lockdown said, “Don’t think there isn’t a dark side to this place.”

“I know better than you,” Talleah insisted. She was used to outsiders, Lockdown included, not understanding Femaxian gender segregation. “Be glad the First One still trusts your people. Dark side or not, a Femaxian Royal Mandate makes it easier for a Cybertronian vessel to operate in Council space. ”

“Doesn’t matter what she thinks of my _people_ , so long as we both honor our contract. A couple pronouns don’t change the fact that we don’t _mate_.”

“I know,” Talleah agreed, “but you do-”

“What I’ll do is consider continuing this conversation after you buy me a drink.”

\---------------

Stormgale shuffled into Master Yoketron’s quarters, both hands holding the tray she carried. She paused just inside the open doorway, reaching with her senses to locate Yoketron.

“I did not send for-” Yoketron began to speak, too close to Stormgale’s left side.

Foolishly she was startled and one hand slipped from the tray. She could hear the slide of ceramics and plant fibers; she could feel the shifting weight. Quickly, she lifted her hand to support the tray, again, and waited for the crash of fallen containers. No crash came, instead there was a series of light impacts _clink, tink, clack_ that seemed timed to reach her from only a short distance below.

Yoketron had not let one item touch the floor. “Master,” Stormgale whispered. “Master, I am sorry. I thought that since Firepowder was away I could bring you tea. I should have sensed you.”

“Should you have?” He queried in his teaching voice. “So advanced are you now that you can sense a master of the Cyber-ninja arts even when he is practicing stealth through spark control?”

“No, Master. That was arrogance.”

“I am confident you would have soon found me reading the air or with radar.” Stormgale felt Yoketron’s hand support her own beneath the tray, and with it came his unrestrained electromagnetic field. “Better?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “Yes, Master.” Stormgale felt peace in Yoketron’s presence. She cleared her mind and willed the gratitude she felt to radiate from her spark.

“And I am grateful for the meal.” Stormgale heard and felt the shifting of the objects on the tray as Yoketron arranged them to their former positions. “The table is in its usual place. You will share with me?”

“It will be my pleasure, Master. Allow me to serve.”

“As you wish, Stormgale.” He stepped away to allow her to enter the room.

Stormgale crossed in measured steps, knelt at the low table, then set down her tray. “Please wait a little while, while I prepare.”

Stormgale sensed Yoketron’s movement. He was, she was convinced, broadcasting his position, using techniques similar to those he had used to hide it earlier. He went out into the courtyard adjacent to these interior rooms; Stormgale heard the familiar sounds of the water pump. The moon Shinobu was made livable more by the gravity, heat, and radiation of Rigel VIII than by The Great One or The Feet at the center of their system. The interplanetary forces kept the moons core warm and churning, enough that they had geysers on some parts of the surface.

Stormgale stacked pans of water and energon on a warming plate. She set out bowls. Stormgale used a scoop to measure out lead sulfide crystal and rusted iron filings into each bowl. She lifted containers close to her mouth or forehead where olfactory sensors most clearly sampled odors, but this was only a precaution to confirm her ingredients. Stormgale had filled the variously shaped containers herself.

When the liquids stacked as a double boiler were warm, Stormgale used a ladle to measure amounts into the drinking bowls, cutting the energon down from full strength. She sensed Yoketron return to the table after washing his hands. She lifted a non-conductive wisk and mixed Master Yoketron’s ener-tea.

“It’s ready.” Stormgale used both hands to pass the small drinking bowl across the table. As Yoketron accepted the tea, their hands touched. “Do you have some concern, Master?”

“It is pleasant to share a meal with one we trust, respect and wish to protect.”

Stormgale’s own spark field contracted involuntarily. “I think I understand. Those are the feelings we all share as Cyber-ninja. Our mission and work is the most important thing.”

“If you make the _choice_ to fully and completely devote yourself to the work. There are many virtuous paths in life. I have chosen mine.”

Stormgale bowed over her own tea, whisking idly.

“Your ener-tea service is impeccable.”

As if to prove this yet true, Stormgale laid down her wisk atop the woven tray liner; she lifted her bowl and sipped tea.

“You added the lead sulfide, as Firepowder does.”

“You do not get to neglect proper maintenance because she is on a quest,” Stormgale said as brightly as she was able, “I am told it gives ener-tea a lovely green color.”

“It is green like moss, like…the Gyconi Crest.”

“I see,” Stormgale smiled.

“It is natural to offer of ourselves to those we care about. For some, it means offering medicinal tinctures. For others perhaps, serving meals. One does not preclude the other. I would be pleased if you accepted my company and conversation when it seems suitable. We did used to share tea often.”

Stormgale did not feel able to answer immediately.

“The atmospheric conditions seem average.”

Stormgale laughed happily.

“You may share.”

“It is just, I _feel_ like I have been asked to rise up and sit at an Elite table all over again. Yet, I _know_ that I did not know true kinship or love until I came here. Master, I would love nothing _more_ than occasional company and conversation as we work together.”

“That I can give,” Yoketron promised.

\----------------

Everyone in Lovetopia was very _helpful_. They had Promotion Counselors walking the streets, one of which Talleah had allowed to pass them off to a Greetings Facilitator, who had in turn passed them off to a Salutations Servicer, and then to a Position Assesser who quickly showed them a mid-level seat in a large round dining theater, before passing them off to a Servicer Provider.

“Which Service Provider would you prefer?” Asked the petite organic with multicolored, painted face stripes. He clapped his hands and three other beings in flat sandals scurried loudly toward their low table and stood as if at attention.

Lockdown reclined against the cushioned back of the bench he shared with Talleah. “Don’t care,” he said.

“Are you able to tell us more about our choices?” Talleah asked, with a brief, questioning glance towards Lockdown.

“Of course, Sir-Hunter-Captain and Miss-Captain-of-Femax. House Odessix sends its son,” The Servicer Provider said of the first, small organic.

“A Nebulan,” Talleah whispered, “Fair trade partners; their males can be shrewd and intelligent, but they are even weaker and smaller than those of Femax. Their trade in lead sulfide has dwindled in recent history.”

“Right.” Probably had to do with rise and fall of Cybertronian presence on Nebulos. Lockdown changed the subject. “Usually not a good sign: Houses.” He whispered back, as he waved a hand for the Servicer Provider to continue. Nebulos was nowhere near Odessix, which made these Houses and relationships confusing.

“House Kazekunai sends its child. And House Gyconi sends its son.”

“I do not recognize the species of mechanism and…reptile?” Talleah whispered, “Is our decision a test?”

“We want all three,” Lockdown announced, taking a chance, “All Houses have anticipated our needs well.”

All four providers bowed deeply and spoke thanks. The stripe-faced Servicer Provider backed away, leaving the three Providers with different colored marks on their faces, presumably identifying their houses: Bright pink, red, and green.

“May we fetch a Beverage Steward,” The Nebulan asked politely.

“A Dining Consultant or Expediter?” The small mechanism asked.

“Happiness Facilitator?” The lizard giggled.

“You know what’ll facilitate my happiness? You, Empty, order food and drink for my Femaxian friend; you’ll analyze the stuff before she eats it. And, you, Lizard, order me some energon. And you, Nebulan, come tell us what we want to know.” The Providers scurried, again, to do as commanded.

“Oh, are we really _friends_?” Talleah asked, shoving at Lockdown’s arm.

Lockdown grimaced at his own choice of words before turning his head toward her to reply. “We’re _more_ than friends. We’re _business_ partners. I’ll buy you dinner, if you buy me a drink.”

“When don’t I buy you drinks?”

Lockdown chuckled at that. “That’s why we’re partners. You keep me in the style to which I’m accustomed.” He turned his attention to the Nebulan who was standing at his knee, apparently waiting to be addressed. “So what do we call you?”

“What do you wish to call me, Sir-Hunter-Captain, other than ‘Nebulan’?”

Lockdown caught the poorly disguised annoyance and laughed. He glanced at Talleah and tipped his head toward the little, green man.

“Translation and listening devices?” She whispered to the smaller organic in Nebulanese, which Lockdown still understood, with his own translation protocols running.

Their Provider nodded.

“Can you speak freely?” Talleah asked.

“As freely as you, Miss-Captain-of-Femax.”

“So long as he’s not rude to guests, would reflect badly on his house. Right?” Lockdown asked.

“He means so long as none of us speak of the First One’s policies having a ‘dark side’.”

The Nebulan hesitated, looking from Talleah to Lockdown and back with pale eyes. “None of us would ever speak so of a wise governing body, _may I ascend to the most elite_. To that effect, who are you looking for?”

“What makes you think we’re looking for someone?” Lockdown asked.

The Nebulan turned his head, briefly, perhaps to see if the other Providers had returned. Lockdown caught clatter of their low sandals and scanned for visual. When he looked back down, the Nebulan Provider was looking up at him. “I’m irretrievably Lovetopian, now, but I lived on Nebulos, once. I know what Femaxians and Decepticons are.”

“Do you now?” Lockdown asked. The little man better understand it was a rhetorical question. “Practically a free agent these days.”

“We are looking for leads on a few individuals,” Talleah broke in.

The small mechanism walked to her knee and bowed. “Crackers and Vandarian Fuzz-worm Eggs contain balance of protein and carbohydrate. Salinity of eggs and moisture of crackers suggests accompanying beverage is appropriate.” She held a tray in offering.

“Good engex, Sir-Hunter-Captain!” The lizard peeped.

Lockdown reached around the Nebulan to take his drink. “Why did I pick all three?”

Talleah said something, but Lockdown couldn’t translate, as she had food in her mouth.

“C’mere,” Lockdown said. He grasped the Nebulan by the back of his tunic.

“No!” You don’t want to-” the little man complained, squirming.

Lockdown dropped the Nebulan to the seat of the cushioned bench; saw he landed on his feet. “What you complaining about?”

The green man put a hand to his forehead. “You literally elevated me.”

“Lockdown,” Talleah whispered.

“Do we have a marriage proposal here?” a voice boomed.

“Oh, scrap!” Lockdown saw the staring eyes and optics, heard the clapping and clinking in encouragement. A large, pink organic laced into tall stilt-sandals walked slowly toward his table, aided down stairs by a pair of assistants in slightly less tall sandals.

Lockdown stood and began to take a step towards the tall, pink Odessan, but he felt the unnatural weight on his right arm. The Nebulan had both arms wrapped about Lockdown's hook. “I’ll tell you whatever you want, if you tell them you _meant_ it. To save face for us _both_ , please!”

\-------------------------

Slipwire didn’t mind monitor duty. As a bot trained in stealth, she knew how to exploit security sensors and choose her approach. Getting how sneak attacks happened helped her appreciate the importance of anticipating when others tried to do it. She sat in a swivel chair with feet propped up near a console and monitored.

It was calming. She’d heard others say “boring”, but whatever, mileage may vary. She scanned the Intra-Rigelan Satellite Networks for data streams and media. She watched remote video feeds of the dojo, landing site, and geyser basin. Slipwire glanced at atmospheric sensor readings; didn’t understand their meaning as well as flyers like Radia or Stormgale seemed to, but she knew sudden large changes were bad.

She had besides visual indicators of which motion, metal, and EM detectors were set off within the dojo. She usually made a point of avoiding as many of those as possible.

She’d had a holomatter circuit upgrade when she first came to the dojo, which had enabled her to easily bypass visual scans. Yoketron had always sensed her anyway, which had been frustrating for a while. He had this speech he periodically gave about the importance of the bot over the weapon. He’d made Slipwire deactivate the upgrade. She supposed she was grateful.

It had forced her to learn to consider lighting, and angles, and fields of perception.

Only recently, she’d even learned to disguise her energy signature with spark control.

She was pretty proud of that.

Another thing Slipwire liked about monitor duty was that it gave her extra time to work on her music. The sensor readouts and monitors were highly visual, which meant she could listen to Nebulon Rock Opera all she wanted, or even play her own instruments.

Slipwire converted the tips of her digits to picks and strummed at the Rigelian laser-koto in her lap. She preferred real strings, but this had an intriguing, synthetic sound. The sound changed depending how much light was reflected from her picks back to the receptors and at what angle. Light, angles, fields of perception. It was an exercise in being visually loud.

She sang to herself, “It’s the ninja-bot~ the ninja-bot~ Not the weapon~ Oh, no, not the weapon~” 

A flash from the IRS Net drew her attention. Slipwire sat-up. An interstellar-capable craft was departing Lovetopia. It wasn’t particularly unusual. Lovetopia, and the Rigel System as a whole, had a fair share of intra and inter system traffic, just by merit of being a system with advanced civilizations over multiple eons, which also boasted combination of multiple resort, urban, and frontier hab-centers. Being on the outskirts of a nebula also meant they got refugees from whichever military fleet was hiding in the interstellar gas cloud at the time.

The ship in question hadn’t moved enough to have an obvious destination, its vector could be putting it en route to Shinobu, or just as well outside the System, or positioning for a maneuver into the inner planets. Slipwire gestured through the holo-interface to log the ship as per normal procedures.

She sat back and returned to playing, “They say no one’s from Rigel originally~”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expect so much of this, particularly the Lovetopia worldbuilding, to be jossed at some point, but such is the frustration of writing for ongoing. All we basically knew of the place was that they had elites and a dark secret. So, there ya go: face paint, shoe game of houses, and voluntary kinship. The lizard "son of House Gyconi" is probably Slizardo, if you'd like to imagine that cameo. I was already getting way to detailed with the Lovetopians. 
> 
> Also, is there an alien world not wrecked by Cybertronians in IDW continuity? Rigel IV canonically was, and apparently Nebulos was pretty devastated by Thunderwing. No wonder the Council is against them. But, they are still known for their Rock Operas.


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hunters move in on the Cyber-ninja.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: character death
> 
> Soundtrack:  
> Placebo - Infra-Red  
> Linkin Park - New Divide + Iridescent  
> Stan Bush - Heat of the Battle  
> Imagine Dragons - Battle Cry

The _Karakuri_ sat parked in plain sight, its only camouflage the fact that it didn’t look obviously like a spaceship from the outside. The blue and red vessel, though by all accounts non-sentient, was a _transformer_ , with ground and space modes. Now, its forward shields and stations were side wings to the main edifice; its nacelles entry ramps to upper-storey landings. Its control bridge was lofty hall, above the main entrance where a docking ring was converted to and arched staircase and footbridge. It was crowned by a crest that rose like spires from its engine core.

A shrill cry was followed by a small, dark shape disengaging from the tower’s crest. The cyber-hawk spread wings, and then glided toward the group in a descending spiral. It drew talons upward and spread metallic blade-feathers as it neared Radia. She extended her left arm and the hawk landed.

Radia signaled a halt with her right hand, then dispensed am energon goodie from her gauntlet for the cyber-hawk. The bird caught the goodie in its beak, then hopped to Radia’s shoulder to eat.

Counter Arrow transformed first, having no cargo and moved quickly to Ox’s side to unload his bed. However, Stabdash hovered still with cargo clipped beneath, anticipating transport into the ship. Radia waved at Counter Arrow and he stopped his work to watch her. “FIRST FUEL TO NACELLES FINISH,” she signed, “SECOND YOU FUEL PUT INSIDE FINISH,” Radia included Eagle Killer and Wicked Attack in ‘you’, “THIRD WE SHIP TURN ON FINISH.”

\-------------------

“Ve are getting a heat bloom at ze _alpha site_ off ze probe,” Blitz reported.

“ _Death’s Head_ in line of sight in two kliks, counting,” Ransack added.

“Fire thrusters to slow approach,” Lockdown ordered. He rose from his captain’s chair and scanned the various holo-displays. “That’s a ship,” he said, pointing to one of two identified structures, “I want the _Widowmaker_ to approach here.” He made a sweeping motion against the moon’s rotation. “Blitz, Ransack, you’re with Talleah’s crew. Venom, you’ll have the conn, here; Talleah, leave him troopers enough to crew the bridge and take as many of the remainder as you see fit. Priority is containment, until we locate our target.”

Lockdown turned to address the rest of the present Hunters, which was most of them, minus the troopers and Femaxians prepping drop ships. “Lugnut, rest a you bugs, you’re with me.”

“What about me?” a small voice asked.

Lockdown looked down and saw his Nebulan standing in the shadow of the captain’s chair. “You’re staying on the ship.”

“C’mon! I helped you find this place!”

“Yeah, your intel on local Nebulan Rock Opera fans was real vital.”

“I gave you a specific range of distances that identified _this_ moon! Look, I got a bounty hunting outfit and everything!”

Lockdown laughed out loud. The man was too much! “Venom, give Bandit access to the bridge and my comm channel, but he stays here. Man gives you trouble you send a trooper to lock him in his closet.”

“My name is-!”

“ _Know_ your name,” Lockdown grumbled. He was done and started walking from the bridge. Hadn’t had much of a choice but to speak vows before a Lovetopian official. “You so eager to be in my _house_ , you can answer to a Cybertronian name.” Little man was wearing pink and black face paint now.

Bandit kept after him, running at Lockdown’s heal like a trained cyber-hound. “I’m not the one who got us in this-”

“You _begged_ me!”

“You can live by your code, but you’ve got to let me live by mine and do _some_ duties. I’m supposed to protect you.”

Lockdown laughed, again. He couldn’t concentrate with how ridiculous Bandit was being. He stopped, crouched and caught the Nebulan with his hook about the man’s torso. “Firstly, you made your _costume_ outta your space suit, which you’ll need intact, if I space ya. Second, you keep buggin’ me and you will end up spaced, or hangin’ on my wall.”

“I’m not afraid of that. The important thing is I do my duty until the end.”

“Slag,” Lockdown cursed, “don’t you Lovetopians have any instinct for self-preservation?”

“So much that we need to take on service and duty to others,” Bandit said, fixing Lockdown with a gaze.

Lockdown stood, looked away down the corridor. “Ain’t got time for a spark-to-spark. To survive on _my_ ship, you got to be someone I can continue to _use_ , not so… _disposable_.”

“I’ll do better,” Bandit promised, but Lockdown was already moving away.

\----------------------

Where the blip Slipwire had been tracking had disappeared into the sensor blindspot caused by the position of one of Rigel VIII’s many other moons, there now emerged two smaller contacts. She quickly logged the position. Could it be a meteor had broken up upon impact with the other moon? “But it showed controlled movement,” Slipwire whispered to herself. As she spoke, the two contacts separated and accelerated opposite each other.

They’d had close passes of disabled or lost vessels in the past, and announced approaches when the _Karakuri_ went out and returned, and this fit neither pattern. Slipwire stood and flipped one of the alarm switches, a low pattern of beeps was accompanied by strobing lights from emergency systems built into the ceilings. She then depressed the button to activate address system, “Condition Magenta. Initiate all lockdown procedures. I repeat: Condition Magenta. We are on lockdown.”

Slipwire knew the Juniors were mostly with Radia and half the senior squad on a training optics quest, but this was a time when security superseded need to mediate or train. She activated another control to initiate contact. “Dojo to Radia, are you receiving?”

The response was a tone, followed by incoming string of text which appeared on the console display, as well as Slipwire’s synched personal heads-up display: //Radia: receiving.//

“Condition Magenta. Two vessels inbound. Dojo is on lockdown.”

//Understood. Priority: defend sanctuary. Radia: will attempt regroup your location. Out.//

\-----------------

Radia was already in the upper hall of the _Karakuri_ , when Slipwire relayed the alert. She gestured across the holo-display before her to activate external sensor systems. There was no contact, yet, but were she planning an attack, she’d approach low to use Shinobu’s terrain to hide her position as long as possible.

She disliked use of battlenets, laser comms, or wireless text communication, but that didn’t mean she was bad at using them. Radia was merely _better_ adapted to visual communication and tracking spark signatures for positioning.

//Transform the ship.//

“Transform the ship!” Firepowder called from the stairwell at the back of the chamber. They’d all received the same message, but it was still procedure to acknowledge by relaying back the messages aboard ship. Radia heard her feet on the stairs; stealth wasn’t a priority now.

Radia synced her systems to the _Karakuri_ , bypassing need tomanually activate controls. It took a few nanokliks to adjust to the data load. They’d nearly finished synching onboard computer files with the dojo as part of routine maintenance – Radia wondered if Master Yoketron had anticipated this circumstance when he assigned the training quest - the starboard manual release was stuck, and it would take kliks to completely shift to flight mode, during which the ship was most vulnerable.

//Starboard release: vacant.// Radia relayed.

Stabdash responded. //I’m here. I’m not strong enough!//

//On it.// Counter Arrow replied.

//Stations as follows: X-Car: engine core. Counter Arrow: Starboard. Wicked Attack: Port. Eagle Killer: Bridge. Ox, Stabdash, Firepowder, Scryhook: prepare for deployment. All: condition magenta; priority: defense.//

\----------------

Lockdown looked down from the rear cargo door of the _Red Swan_. The dojo below was a rectangular structure with only a few small outbuildings. Lockdown guessed their target was either in one of the internal chambers, or below the small building in the courtyard.

“Barrage, perimeter.”

The Insecticon cackled as, true to name, he loosed a veritable barrage of explosive and incendiary charges from crotch-mounted and handheld guns. Dirt, debris and fire erupted from impacts below. The buggy beast-formers looked different, but they exceled at their jobs. Lockdown had to smile at the destruction below.

Lockdown could feel the heat from the ring of fire and dust clouds left in the _Swan_ ’s wake.

“Maintain containment. Lugnut, Hardshell, you’re up next; take-out any defenders.”

Lugnut took a running leap from the cargo bay and jumped from the ship with a battle cry, “For the glory of the Decepticons!”

Hardshell chirred in annoyance, then converted to flight-capable insect form and flew from the bay.

“Chop Shop, you’re with me. Silent flight. Seek and retrieve the merchandise.”

\-------------------

Moonshadow was crouched in one of the training rooms, head raised, alert, she counted the number of novice squad members with her again. They were of course unchanged from the last count, but procedure dictated headcounts at least every 8 kliks.

The room shook again, weapons and practice dummies rattling or falling from racks. Moonshadow lifted the arms of a nearby novice to cover their head and those others watching got the idea to take cover.

“We should go out there and help,” Artfire whispered, looking at her over the heads and backs of the kneeling novice Cyber-ninja.

Moonshadow gestured for silence, then used signs. “NO. WE WORK PROTECT THEM.” She didn’t know if hand signs had always been part of ninja training, but they had been optional study at least since Moonshadow joined, and pretty necessary for Radia’s squad. Moonshadow knew Artfire understood.

“MOONSHADOW!” Artfire extended fingers either side of his head in imitation of the shape of her helmet. It was her name, but as much understood as complaint and accusation. He felt her too serious-minded.

Moonshadow danced wiggling fingers over her chest, “ARTFIRE!” It was the same: more than his name, but as much accusation that he was being so _himself_. He thought with his spark.

The building shook again, by Moonshadow’s estimation the attack came now from all sides. “I DECIDE. TIME WE EVACTUATE.”

Artfire gave a sharp nod, probably glad it would mean moving. Even running was preferable to hiding. He tapped at the shoulder of a nearby novice as Moonshadow did the same to those near her. In gesture, they told the others to be quiet and follow.

“YOU GO,” Moonshadow told Artfire, indicating the direction, as well that she would guard the back of the line. The escape tunnels to the geyser basin were not accessible from this particular room, but from several others, two of which they should easily reach, so long as no enemies were yet within the dojo proper.

Moonshadow watched that Artfire checked the doorway before leading the first novice students out. She did a quick headcount, bent to grab a pair of fallen swords, then jogged to the end of the line.

\-------------------

“Incoming!” Ox called.

“Are those _flying cars_?!” Firepowder asked.

Stabdash, standing on Firepowder’s backpack, lowered her visor to scan them. “Hoverjets,” she shrugged. “Constructed Troopers. Decepticon. Haven’t seen this model in action.” She retracted her visor into her helmet.

“Faction doesn’t matter,” Firepowder said calmly, “If they attack, we must stop them.”

“Their own dumb fault for being cannon fodder,” Stabdash sneered. She looked to Radia’s Cyber-hawk, perched on the walls of the _Karakuri_ , “Ready, Scryhook?” Even as the bird answered, Stabdash initiated partial transformation. The pair of swords on her back locked into place with a _click_ , and then – _whir_ , _snap_ , _whir_ – mechanically split apart to form the four rotor blades of her alt-form.

“Here, take these,” Firepowder said, offering up a handful of capsules to Stabdash, who hung hovering from her spinning blades.

It was almost an armful to Stabdash, but she collected the capsules and quickly loaded them into glove compartments, before tucking and twisting into her alt-form.

The vehicons came in firing. “They’ll militarize _anything_.” Stabdash evaded as she flew towards them. The amount of effort she put into evasion suggested the troopers were actually targeting her, which was impressive, given how used to being ignored as a threat she was. She didn’t take it as much of a compliment and instead assumed their orders prioritized containment over destruction of the larger target.

But if they were targeting her, it was time to take the fight into close quarters. Stabdash cut her rotors, then drew her swords as she transformed in freefall. She landed, blades first on the hood of one of the vehicons.

With effort, she pulled her swords free of the vehicon and hopped off into the air. She heard Scryhook cry out, asking if she needed an assist, but Stabdash merely tossed her swords to her back and spun-up her rotors to slow her decent. A pair of vehicons closed in; Stabdash transformed her hands to launchers and shot Firepowder’s capsules at them.

One ended up with an acid-burned windshield, and the other got expanding foam in the wing. Glancing down, Stabdash saw the grounded vehicons were merely wounded. Ox ran one down, putting his shoulder into the trooper’s chest like a wrestler.

“Scryhook!” The bird went into a dive toward Stabdash, then spread its wings to stop short on jets of air. “I need to get under one.”

The cyber-hawk transformed; a simple shift from self-propelled bird to jet assisted grappling hook and line. Stabdash held its tail and spun the hook of beak and talons out toward another hoverjet. Scryhook latched on. Stabdash cut rotors and swung down beneath the vehicon.

The hoverjet rolled to shake her, but Stabdash had already had time to mag-lock her feet to the chassis. She made a quick visual scan of the underside. “Gotcha!” Stabdash pushed one sword against the vehicon’s back, aiming for the spark.

“Got you,” The vehicon said as he transformed around her, arms peeling from each side, front end folding and splitting into legs. Stabdash lost a hold as pieces her hand and feet gripped moved apart. A clawed hand caught her arm and swung her outward. Scryhook screeched and transformed, spreading wings to be free.

Scryhook flew in a tight circle, wrapping the cable from its tail around the vehicon, but it not before the trooper drew Stabdash in toward his chest. His second, clawed hand attempted to pry the sword from her hand.

“NO!” Stabdash shouted.

The vehicon landed heavily on his feet, and though Stabdash kicked, she was over-powered and out-sized.

“Stabdash!” Ox called. She could see him charging, head low, and further behind, Firepowder driving out from a cloud of smoke.

“Ox!” Stabdash called, thrashing and kicking as much as she was able. Her hand was on her sword, but she couldn’t move it.

 _THUDOOM_! Something big landed just behind. _KERACK…CHOOOM_!

Stabdash saw light, and then smoke, sparks, and Ox falling, light beaming through a hole in his chest.

No sound would come from her. There was a _twang_ of snapping cable. An organic in red near Firepowder. Someone said, “Take ze little one.”

\--------------------

It took every bit of dojo-trained endurance for Slipwire not to move when the bombs and grenades rained down around her. Nothing to see here, she thought, just a dirty, bright gold rocket-cycle. No one trying to hide would have a silver and gold deco, right? Not that her thoughts influenced how others saw her, but she liked to think it helped with her spark control.

She remained still, side mirrors turned slightly downward, even as the pair of enormous bots came tromping through the devastation. It had been fortunate the energon collectors happened to be near empty – she had to wonder now if it was by design – or she wouldn’t have survived the last round of explosions. She waited for one of the large bots to pass.

Slowly quietly, on regularly lubricated joints, Slipwire transformed; secondary explosions sounded as fire cracked crystal and rock provided some cover. She reached down into the soil for her 4-string, and cut-out the strings with a laser cutter extending from the tip of one digit. She twisted the strings together as she moved. She stalked, and then pounced. Leaping onto the back of the giant bug-bot. The strings flew over the bot’s head and Slipwire pulled.

She’d slice her own fingers off if she wasn’t careful, might still anyway, but if she could take out just one big bot, that was one less to invade the sanctuary of the dojo.

The hydraulics went first, with a gush of colorful fluid, then the vocalizer. The energon lines were next, with a wide spray of pink liquid as the body began to topple. Finally the makeshift garrote cut through the neural column, separating brain-module from spark.

Slipwire rode the body to the ground, momentarily taken by panic that she had to stop and unwind her own bleeding digits from the guitar strings. Slow, she told herself, slow. She hadn’t wanted so badly – not in a long time – to use her holo-matter upgrade as at that moment, but she knew the coding would take time she didn’t have.

She could hear feetfalls. She could just see a silhouette wreathed in flames. He wasn’t big, but he moved with confidence and was covered in spikes. _Adaptus_! He looked badaft. Obviously, also literally bad, but still fraggin cool.

Move! She told herself. The uneven firelight and estimated visual ranges being what they were, Slipwire moved slowly toward the burning walkway where the heat and light should disguise her, for a little while.

\---------------------

Radia shuttered her optics. She disengaged from the _Karakuri_ ’s systems. Just herself, now. She pointed towards Eagle Killer, knowing his positing without looking, and directed him to take the controls.     

//Radia: en route.// They needed her out there. She had given orders. She’d assigned duties. Now, Ox was gone, and Stabdash captured. It hurt, and guilt washed through spark and CPU. She’d assumed control, and things had not gone in their favor. She didn’t deserve to lead.

Yet, finally, Radia realized what Moonshadow and Stormgale – and probably others – already had: she _was_ their leader. It was not her role because she was in any way better, or deserved command. She was their leader because they collectively chose her, and more importantly, because she understood the weight of the responsibility was nothing she could ever again wish on another.

//Karakuri: Airborne at all costs.//

“Aye,” Eagle Killer said aloud.

Radia ran from the bridge and down the stairs, into the starboard corridor that ran the length of the nearly transformed nacelle. Counter Arrow was unseen, and though he had the ability to cloak himself, Radia feared he’d gone to help the others outside. She hurried to the forward bay and found the doors open.

Her reluctance had been a weakness. It was time to stop.

Radia started her engines and folded through conversion to alt-form. A pale green aerial spy craft, she flew from the bay. Firepowder was seemingly alone out here, but yet holding her own at the base of the ship, where the stair folded back into the more compact form of docking ring. Radia scanned the enemy quickly: a small number of troopers carrying injured toward the ramp of their ship; the tank which had felled Ox, a bug-bot and a few troopers attacking the Karakuri itself, and the organics in shining armor in melee combat with Firepowder.

//Firepowder?//

//I can handle these ones.//

Radia fixed the tank in target lock and fired laser blasters that usually only saw action against space debris. She hit it, but doubted she’d done much damage. Like Stabdash, she was going to have to risk getting close, but unlike Stabdash, she matched her opponent in size.

Radia transformed, maintaining altitude with the jets on her legs. Below, the tank unfolded into bot-form. He made a curious bow to her, more like fancy manners than what one did at the beginning of a martial arts match. Then he rose into the air.

“Vy, hello zere, may I have zis dance?” He called.

He’d just blown a hole through Ox’s chest and he was…Radia didn’t even know _what_ he was doing.

The tan and violet bot changed, again, into a jet. A _triple changer_?! Radia immediately kicked up her legs to tumble backward out of his flight path. She converted back to alt and climbed. The jet was a fighter model, and typically more maneuverable than a spy plane designed for high-altitude flight, but the thin atmosphere in these outer moons probably favored Radia.

Otherwise, she’d see if his jet judo was very good. She converted again, the tan jet climbing toward her in pursuit. She kicked out as they passed each other, striking flaps and ailerons. In freefall, Radia folded back into a plane and banked away, even as her dance partner assumed bot-form and fired missiles from shoulder-mounted launchers.

Radia used her integrated spy-plane listening devices to scan for the missiles control frequency, quickly she analyzed the signal, and remote detonated at a nearly-safe distance. She cut propulsion and rode the shockwave. When she unfolded, she saw the tan bot watching her.

// _Karakuri_ is go.// Eagle Killer called over their radio link.

//Fall back.// Radia commanded. //Atmospheric hop to dojo. Radia: flying escort.// She waved goodbye to the triple changer, folded back to alt, and flew for the Karakuri as it lifted off the ground.

\----------------------

Moonshadow stopped and looked up. She could hear the behemoth of a plane-bot stomping, smashing and calling for them. They’d followed procedure, not made for the tunnel before protocol said it was the best choice, and they’d rushed. They – she – hadn’t concentrated on stealth. She’d forgotten patience in her aim to protect the novices by evacuating as quickly as possible. They’d been seen. The enemy knew they were near, and he’d eventually come across the tunnel. If that happened, there would be no safe location to regroup.

“Moonshadow,” Artfire hissed.

She turned to look at him. He’d come back for her, sending the novices ahead.

“You’ve decided it’s suddenly _responsible_ to do a reckless thing _I_ would do.”

Moonshadow smiled, a little. “ _You’ve_ decided to be responsible and stop me. Guess that means _my_ work here is done.”

“We can collapse the tunnel from down here.”

“Yes. After I go.” Moonshadow turned, swords held at her sides, and crept back through the portion of the tunnel running beneath the dojo.

“Don’t die,” Artfire’s voice called after her.

Moonshadow climbed up through a hatch in the security station, then slipped out into the corridor, and back into the room where the tunnel entrance was hidden behind a cabinet. She didn’t announce herself, but rolled forward and slashed at the larger bot’s heel with one sword. Moonshadow tumbled backward as the big bot yowled and turned slowly on the injured one of his feet.

“I’m going to crush you!”

Moonshadow gave a nod and raised her swords. She concentrated, remembering her Metallikato lessons. She tried to will herself to see his moves before they happened. Moonshadow watched for a tell, or sign, shifting weight back and forth in readiness to move. She saw a shift in weight and dashed opposite, ran halfway up the wall, then back down behind the bigger bot. She positioned her sword, but the heel she meant to attack moved away.

Again. She saw the arms swing. She moved, leapt onto his knee and used her position to slice the joint of leg to torso. A high-pitched whine interrupted her concentration. She saw the arms swing – it happened fast. The whole space around her erupted and Moonshadow was thrown into the cabinet. Her body crushed the fibrous, organic material of the doors.

She shook her head. Was she even holding swords?

“I’ve fought little bots like you before. You think because I’m big, I’ll be slow, or you can make me fall.”

Moonshadow heard the whine again. “ARTFIRE!” She managed to cartwheel away from the punch, but only just.

“They called me the Kaon Krusher!”

Moonshadow tried to concentrate again. She’d lost one sword, somewhere.

“Now would be a good time for some daring thing.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Artfire said, crouched within the cabinet. A ball of fire burst into being between his hands, then danced in a stream toward the purple behemoth’s face.

Moonshadow took advantage of their opponent’s temporary blindness to attack the knee between injured heel and thigh.

The big bot remained standing, balanced on one leg. A giant fist swung down again, near Artfire. Floor planks and pulverized rock from the foundation spread along with a fierce shockwave. Artfire was thrown as Moonshadow had been before. But now, their opponent struggled to stand upright.

“For the glory of the Decepticons I will keep fighting!”

Moonshadow saw Artfire was climbing to an island of intact flooring. She tossed him her sword, then pressed her hands together in preparation for a Crystalocution technique. Moonshadow rolled forward and made a non-verbal vocalization to focus, as she struck the purple bot’s lower leg with the heels of her palms.

A great _CRACK_ sounded and the bigger bot’s injured leg slipped out from under him.

\---------------------

Lockdown strode through the halls of the dojo. It reminded him of a place he’d been before, on Cybertron, only this one was made of organic materials from nearby worlds, and in the process of being consumed by fire. The Cyber-ninja had made a point of shutting doors, but the walls themselves were so flimsy Lockdown could kick right through them. “This is their protection for their great treasure?”

Chop Shop hovered behind him in mass-displaced insect size, making hardly a sound.

“There,” Lockdown pointed through the damaged wall into a nearby room with shuttered windows, “Cut through there. Should lead to the courtyard.”

Chop Shop clicked at him as he flew through the hole in the wall.

“Where are you?” Lockdown whispered. He consulted a holo-display on his gauntlet. The fire interfered with detecting heat signatures, and the dojos power systems gave off EM which was concentrated in several areas. Could be utility rooms, but also a good place to hide one’s own energy signature.

Yet, he knew Yoketron was here. Lockdown continued through the hallway, ripping at doors with his hook.

And he was there.

Yoketron.

Immaculate. A white knight in black and gold trimmed armor. Kneeling peacefully as the building burned. A last drink and a pair of swords lain out on a low table.

“Lockdown. I expected you sooner.”

“Never was good enough for you, was I, ya old mech?”

\----------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what to put here. I usually acknowledge sources and stuff, but I'm just relieved I got this much action scene writing done.
> 
> OK, in some order:  
> -The Karakuri, visually, is influenced by the Cyber-ninja Dojo as seen in Transformers: Animated AND by Car Robots Brave Maximus  
> -Bandit's Nebulan name is Ban Drib, which has not had reason to be revealed as of yet. For the audience it may look like attempt at phonetic translation, but Lockdown's speaking Cybertronian, which we're in turn reading in English, so he's calling him: "guy who holds me up or steals from me." Loosely inspired by the existence of Bandit Lockdown: a blue and black Lockdown repaint with eyepatch. His names work in some other ways, too.  
> -I found the following blog post bios to be helpful in writing the Insecticons: http://boltax.blogspot.com/2010/12/extended-bios.html  
> -"Condition Magenta" is a G1 cartoon thing, from The Master Builders ep.  
> -As soon as I started writing Moonshadow and Artfire in the same scenes, they started to seem parallels of characters I didn't even base them on.  
> -The Spy Changer characters do canonically have special abilities like control of fire, invisibility, gravity, etc. (For example, Counter Arrow is the Mirage of that continuity) Porting them into this continuity probably means the Junior Squad has a lot of Outliers.  
> -I wasn't sure if "Blitving" who is a background homage character in actual comic, should be a triple changer or not, like native Blitzwing...but he is now, in this fic.  
> -I think I had Artfire make some facial expressions, although his Car Robots character has a mouthplate and visor, and I think that this was because I was thinking of him as "Hot Shot", so whatever, this one looks different. Name and deco recycling across continuities is sometimes confusing.  
> -And, finally, this Lockdown and Yoketron do know each other, like the Animated versions.


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are losses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Character Death
> 
> Soundtrack:  
> Adele - Turning Tables + Someone Like You  
> The Cure - Disintegration

Lockdown watched Yoketron slowly rise to his feet. “That has always been how you have seen it,” the old Master said.

“Damn straight!” Lockdown swiped at Yoketron with the back of his hook. He knew he was here on a job, but he’d missed sparring with this bot.

True to form, the Cyber-ninja pivoted cleanly away.

“Can see you haven’t changed.” Lockdown jabbed with his left hand, but Yoketron deflected with his right forearm. “Still telling other bots how they’re _allowed_ to see _your_ actions.”

Lockdown shifted his stance. Yoketron took a complementary stance.

“Your reasoning is flawed,” Yoketron insisted, same condescending tone as Lockdown remembered.

“Mech knows what he feels in his own spark!” He kicked out toward Yoketron, and it seemed the ninja allowed the contact along his side. Set-up for a diffusion technique? Lockdown dropped purposely to the floor as Yoketron took hold of his leg.

Yoketron used the movement to sail overhead and land in a crouch at Lockdown’s opposite side. “Your spark is consumed with greed and selfishness,” he said wearily.

Lockdown grinned up at him, “Least I can admit what I want, Spark.” He tumbled backward with an aim to strike Yoketron, but the ninja lunged, then used the shift in balance to kick Lockdown’s side.

Yoketron stood slowly and looked down at Lockdown crouched on the floor. “A passion that disregards the goals of others, so long as you possess what you desire.”

Lockdown shifted weight to his hand and swept a leg behind Yoketron’s feet. He chuckled as Yoketron hopped out of the way. “Seem to recall a _little_ passion looks real good on ya.”

“Merely concern for a pupil,” he stated, expression passive.

“Keep telling yourself that. I’m not so _deluded_ as to sacrifice all happiness in _this_ life for some kind of _oneness_ you hope to achieve.” Lockdown hopped to his feet.

“There is much beauty and joy to behold in this life that does not rely on attachment.”

“ _Attachment_? Tell me again, Yoketron: how do you _take_ a bot when he’s down, take him into _your_ house and _your_ school, teach him _your_ techniques, and then deny he _is_ yours?”

Yoketron bowed his head, then knelt on the floor. “Lockdown, I am sorry.”

“Don’t you dare!” Lockdown sprang forward, landing in a crouch before Yoketron, and lifted the ninja’s chin with his hook. “Don’t you fraggin apologize after all this time!”

“Lockdown.” Yoketron seemed to gaze right in his optics. “I am relieved to discover that time did not darken your spark enough to kill me.”

Lockdown noticed for the first time since entering the room how very dim the light was in the old Cyber-ninja’s optics. “What are you talking about? I’m not here to _kill_ you!” Steal: yes. Hurt: yes. Capture and torment if he were able: probably. “Not part of your _order_ protecting the secret at _any_ cost.”

“Let me go.” Yoketron said, but Lockdown wasn’t actually holding him; just barely touching his face.

“What’s wrong? Why ain’t you fighting?” Lockdown looked at the table. He grabbed the cup, dipped his hook inside, then brought it to his mouth. Nothing but ener-tea, though a bit mediciney.

Yoketron slipped to the floor.

“NO!” Lockdown shouted at him.

\-------------------

Stormgale stood in the sanctuary, listening, monitoring her comms, reaching out to sense other energy fields or spark signatures. She was aware of the destruction about her in radar blips, heat-blooms, and sounds of explosion and collapse. She knew that her fellow Cyber-ninja were engaged in combat. They did their duty, and as much as she might feel it was good or right to go to them and give aid, Stormgale performed her own duty. She was the last defense.

The sanctuary appeared a small structure within the dojo courtyard; it might have been a place for prayer, or meditation, or serving tea, but its true purpose was to guard entrance to a chamber buried below, and what was stored there.

Someone was approaching, but it came without noise or noticeable signature on Stormgale’s sensors. She _felt_ it. There was direction, but distance was more difficult to understand with sparks other than being _somehow in range_.

It was a risk to announce that she knew. Stormgale began to unwind the scarf on her left forearm, touching the end to confirm the ball bearings currently giving it weight were yet in place. The spark signature moved quickly, back and forth, gradually moving behind her as she remained facing the same direction. Hovering?

Stormgale spun the turbines on her wings to create a draft, as she quietly balled-up the scarf in her left hand. She tossed the scarf outward, aiming for where she thought the target would soon be. It didn’t feel like she hit anything, and she quickly jerked her forearm to begin taking up slack.

She heard something, faint, but close. She felt something clip the tip of her left wing. Stormgale followed the apparent movement with her left scarf, twirling bodily to continue the circle.

Whatever it was, it tugged on the end of her scarf, probably thinking to trip her, but Stormgale was ready and practiced at dancing with the lengths of fabric. She turned into the scarf, letting it wrap her legs, while she used her mouth to release the kunai that secured the scarf still wrapping her right forearm.

Stormgale swung the sharp trowel into her right hand, as she disengaged electromagnets holding the scarf to her left gauntlet. The left scarf went slack about her legs, while she stabbed with the kunai, towards the place she sensed her assailant to be. Again, she missed.

There was a sound like chittering laughter at her left, and then quickly at her right. Small, fast, and hovering?

So her blade needed to fly faster? She could do that. Stormgale loosed an arm’s length of scarf from her right side, as she bent quickly to re-magnetize the metal wand inside the left scarf to her arm. She took a step from the sanctuary and whipped her wrist to make the kunai revolve. Like Stabdash’s rotors, or her own turbine blades, the scarf and kunai sung through the air. Stormgale swung the offensive scarf in circles and infinity loops, using movement of her arm as a whole to control direction.

The scarf made contact, pushing the small foe groundward. Stormgale flicked her left wrist to send her second scarf at her target, as she heard the clatter against the stepping stones. She stooped to bind the intruder.

Stormgale felt a force against her with the fearsome sound of ripping fabric. She was pushed backward into the shallow moat and then as quickly something clamped about her leg and squeezed. She pushed the pain and damage alarms to the back of her processor as she lifted her good leg and brought it down on her opponent tail-fin-first.

The sound: cog active and parts rearranging in conversion from mysterious alt-form to bipedal robot. He didn’t move silently in this mode. She could hear the footfalls and then nearly sub-vocal speech: “It’s here, but underground. Give me a lateral blast? Just the one, Barrage!”

The sound of feet splashing through water and crushing gravel told Stormgale the intruder was taking cover away from the sanctuary. And something else….

“Fight!” A second voice shouted. It came from the direction of Master Yoketron’s chambers. Harsh. Accompanied by snapping metal. “Get up! Curse you, Old Mech fight!”

Powerful engines roared overhead.

“Master!” Stormgale gasped. She climbed to her feet, but the internal damage warnings flared again. She couldn’t run, or fire thrusters for full flight. She angled her wings slightly then spun her fans near to full speed, managing a hover as far as the walkway.

Behind her, there was thundering blast, and she felt heat against her back.

Stormgale leaned on the wall as she coded open the door to Master Yoketron’s room. She sensed only a single spark nearby; radiating pain. “Master?” Stormgale hobbled inside, arms extended. Her injured leg struck something and the pain broke some of her focus; she nearly toppled forward, but was caught in a pair of arms, before she could recover herself.

Stormgale knew the moment they made contact this was not Yoketron, but one of the intruders. There was no peace in his presence, but pain, guilt, want, loss, and then a curious hunger she did not know. Her right arm was braced in strong digits, while a sharp implement was pressed to her back.

“He can’t save you now.”

“I do not require saving.”

The implement left its threatening position over her neural column to tap her forehead, where Stormgale knew she still wore the red House Kazekunai crest. The metal edge scraped her forehead and pried her visor from her. “Huh. Should show off those peepers, if you’re not gonna get ‘em fixed.”

Stormgale heard something fall against the table; probably her visor. “Let-!” But he’d already removed his hand. The still silence seemed to weigh in on Stormgale as he left. Yoketron. He was?

She knelt to the floor, hands trembling as she _touched_ the large form she’d nearly tripped over. Cold metal. Cold, in the shape of her master.

“No.”

She felt her way up from his hips, and her right hand _sank_.

Stormgale felt paralyzed. Her hand, her unworthy hand was _inside_ Yoketron’s spark chamber and there was _nothing_.

\-------------------

Slipwire had made her way slowly through the dojo, entering in stealth after that bot with the hook had passed, and searching for surviving Cyber-ninja or weapons along the way. The internal fire suppression system had activated, but the bombs and fire had collapsed sections of exterior wall, leaving gases to escape and the structure to burn in Shinobu’s thin atmosphere.

Slipwire came to a room at the west of the dojo, at the opposite side of the building from where she’d first sounded the alarm. A door here was broken and lying in the hall, but not marked by fire. One of the attackers must have come this way. She slipped into the adjacent room and saw the far wall showed clean-edged laser incisions, which left a gaping hole to the interior courtyard.

That ship was above. Slipwire crouched and moved out of direct line of sight. Peering around the corner, she saw the sanctuary gone and some kind of beetle-former slowly airlifting the tabernacle. Then, back-lit by fire, the bot with the spikes and hook, standing on part of the roof, directing the other’s movement towards the waiting vessel.

Across the courtyard, Moonshadow and Artfire emerged, not bothering with stealth at all. Moonshadow climbed a column along the covered walkway and pulled herself up onto the roof, while Artfire shit a stream of fire at the bug.  

Slipwire shifted to cycle-form and ramped off the walkway out into the debris-strewn courtyard. She raced toward Artfire, converted back to bot-form to tackle her fellow Cyber-ninja.

“Slipwire! What-?” Artfire shouted, holding his hands overhead as a stream of fire dispersed about them.

“Look at him! It’s straining his _legs_ to lift it. _We_ can’t risk dropping the tabernacle; it’s cold/vacuum storage.” Slipwire rolled to take her weight off Artfire.

“But, they’re taking it!”

Slipwire nodded. “For now.”

“What can I _do_?”

“Help Moonshadow, I’ll try to call Radia, again.” Slipwire glanced up to the roof where Moonshadow sliced with her sword at Spikes. //Radia. You read?”//

//Radia here. Two kliks out.//

//They’re airlifting the whole tabernacle. We can’t stop them without risking it.//

//Can Stormgale harry?//

Within the courtyard and not focused on Artfire or those above, Slipwire now had line-of-sight to Yoketron’s chambers. //Oh, slag.//

Stormgale was sobbing over something gray.

\-----------------------

//No Joy.// Slipwire’s voice was flat, final over Radia’s comm.

//Save what you can.// Radia sent in text. She pushed her speed. The _Karakuri_ was bigger than the pursuing ship; it couldn’t travel any faster this close to the ground and in atmosphere without causing a destructive compression wave, but, maybe, Radia could create just enough of a _boom_.

She was accustomed to traveling several times the speed of sound, but usually at higher altitude and without need to decelerate so quickly afterward. She folded in extra tight, flaps streamlined, and increased thrust.

She had visual on the dojo and it was on fire. A little closer.

_BOOOM_!

Radia put everything into decelerating: flaps, maneuvering thrusters; she flipped out of alt-form, expending some little momentum, and careened into the intruder standing on their roof. She saw him fall, as she rolled, fell through a collapsing section of roof, then skidded to a halt beside a purple bot tied-up in ridiculously intricate network of knotted cords.

Radia ran through the damaged dojo to the courtyard. Slipwire appeared to be standing guard near Master Yoketron’s chamber, while Moonshadow and Artfire were on the roof.

Radia converted again to her alt and rose over the courtyard. She had a visual on the large, approaching red and blue ship, and the red and black pursuer. Here, before her was the brown ship with red sails. She fired a volley of laser blasts, but it appeared shielded.

//Did you see that dispersal pattern?// Slipwire commed. //Hex shields.//

Radia fired again, with the same result: the energy was dispersed across a hexagonal grid, visible just briefly as the lasers struck.

The brown ship pulled away from the dojo. Radia saw that bot with the hook pick himself up from the scorched gardens and walk slowly toward his ship. The option to pursue was removed as the Troopers from the red and black ship deployed, again.

Radia flew along the roof, allowing Moonshadow and Artfire to jump onto her wings – Artfire wasn’t as practiced at the cooperative maneuvers and Radia felt him slip and touch down hard against her dorsal plating. //Just hang on. Watch how Moon moves.// Radia texted.

Radia flew right at the formation of hoverjets. Moonshadow remained mag-locked to her wing as the first passed, probably slicing it’s undercarriage with her sword, and then cartwheeled off to land bodily on one of their opponents.

“So, that’s _actual_ Jet Judo?” Artfire shouted over the wind of their flight.

//Banking right.// Radia warned him; the Juniors didn’t have the benefit of having flight models in their squad, so they couldn’t have practiced together. But they did benefit from high percent of outlier abilities, Radia noted again, as a stream of flame rolled across the hood of a too-close trooper.

As she came back around, flying over the dojo, Radia saw Moonshadow leap from the wing of one of the black hoverjets, and adjusted speed to catch her.

//They are keeping us busy to cover the retreat.// Moonshadow reported over their group battlenet comm.

//Let them go.// Radia replied to the group. //I’ve scanned ships’ energy signatures.//

//Same. I got a clear look at the one I think is their leader.// Slipwire reported. //But, there’s something else we all need to deal with here.//

Radia knew. She didn’t want to think about it, but she’d already sensed it: the loss and conspicuous absence. Ox hadn’t been the only spark to extinguish.

\----------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't very long, particularly in comparison to the one before, but it seems best the breaks be as they are, to allow this to be the transition between sections that are very different in tone. 
> 
> If there are questions about the specifics of the death, please be assured I plan to address that in coming chapters.


	6. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the Cyber-ninja tend their fallen, Stabdash remains a captive aboard the _Death's Head_ , but the Hunters' ship will not soon escape with an absent Captain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning(s): Grief, brief mis-gendering, captivity, burial, scars, brief reference to alien rape culture
> 
> Your equally as happy soundtrack:  
> Vince DiCola - The Death of Optimus Prime  
> Linkin Park - What I've Done  
> Cavo - Let it Go  
> Natasha Bedingfield - Recover  
> (There was also an Adele song, but I'm carrying it over to the next chapter)

Firepowder knew what the message, “It’s Yoketron,” meant she would find, but she still wasn’t prepared. She was the last to arrive, having relieved Wicked Attack and Eagle Killer, then made one last round searching for Counter Arrow before making her way through the wreckage to what remained of Yoketron’s chamber. That there was anything left at all seemed Artfire’s work, as even standing vigil with the others, his hands were raised toward the flames.

Slipwire sat on the floor, rocking Stormgale who sobbed in her arms. Radia was kneeling at their master’s bare head, with Moonshadow standing at her side.

Firepowder made herself look at the gray shell. It didn’t look like Yoketron anymore, except generally the same shape as he had been. The position disturbed her; seeming off in some way.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, touching a hand to Radia’s shoulder. Yoketron had been Master to them all, certainly a mentor, and for some, a veritable savior who had given them a second chance after troubles in their pasts. Firepowder had been last of the Seniors to arrive on Shinobu, but even those who had been here longer said Radia had been at the dojo longest. She might have been made here, or forged; there wasn’t much distinction in the Rigel System where most bots were civilian, and sparks or shells were precious commodities that might be passed down through colonies who once saw a living ship in the distant past. So-called hybrids were common when spark and shell were often obtained separately and through circuitous means.

“Firepowder,” Moonshadow spoke up, “Since you have the highest medical training, we need you to make, at least, a cursory examination before we move the body.”

She was more a chemist with a field-tech certification, but Firepowder didn’t argue the point. “Whatever I can do to help.”

“What do we need to examine?” Stormgale cried, “That _monster_ murdered Yoketron! Reached in with that _appendage_ and crushed his spark!”

Firepowder stooped down beside Yoketron, where the panel which would cover his chest lay open on its hinge. The latch had been forced rather than unlocked; something had evidently pried at the seam just above, as the edge of the panel was now warped. “What kind of appendage? Claws?”

“It was a hook,” Slipwire said, “More like a crook. I’ll show you.” The projectors on her shoulders lit and projected a life-size image of a bot wreathed in flames behind Stormgale’s back. Looked like he had not a few mods, and speaking of….

“You reactivated your upgrade,” Firepowder noted.

Slipwire glanced to Radia or Moonshadow before looking back to Firepowder. “After,” she clarified, “Only just now. I’ve shown I can be stealthy without it.”

At the edge of her field of vision, Firepowder saw Radia make a hand nod.

Firepowder smiled. “You were _always_ stealthy, now you’re also much more centered.”

She continued her examination of the vacant shell as the others spoke.

“I didn’t think of it that way,” Slipwire admitted.

“That was how Master Yoketron worked. He pushed us to make our own realizations,” Moonshadow said.

“Radia…are you?” Artfire asked.

Firepowder glanced up from the empty spark chamber to see Radia grasp one hand in the other. “I LEADER. YES. FIRST I GO GET OX. THEN WE GO GET STABDASH AND T-A-B-E-R-N-A-C-L-E CYLINDER.” She used their locally understood sign for Stabdash by miming drawing swords over her shoulder, then made hand glyphs for the tabernacle, to explain that was the specific cylindrical container she meant. Firepowder nodded her understanding. She hadn’t actually seen the tabernacle outside of the sanctuary before, and hadn’t been trained to perform sanctuary duties, but she had her own suspicions on what they protected.

“I don’t know where I would be if Master Yoketron hadn’t bailed me out,” Slipwire said. Firepowder had known about her record, but it had to be the first time Slipwire had admitted the fact before so many at once.

“If Master Yoketron had not appeared when he did, I might have ended up working in a massage parlor,” Stormgale added.

“It was something similar with me,” Moonshadow said, not giving details.

It hadn’t been like that for Firepowder. Yoketron had visited the camps on Rigel IV numerous times to consult with their medi-bots, while Firepowder had been volunteering her time to teach organic refugees how to grow hydroponic crops. One cycle, he’d come to her saying the camp medi-bots had referred him and recommended her as a skilled apothecary and field-tech. If she was looking for a new challenge and opportunity to explore her alternative remedies, he had a position open. She’d known all along he was ill.

“I was glad for the opportunity here,” Firepowder told the others. “I know Stabdash was in her way. We’ll get her back.”

\---------------------

Stabdash was getting her first look at the interior of the enemy mothership. The lack of cool-toned alloys, sharp lines, or violet or cyan back-lighting everywhere argued against it being Decepticon in design, though most of these idiots holding her captive did seem to be ‘Cons, if a motley assortment.

The pair of ships, which were each smaller than the _Karakuri_ , fit together docked in this bay, suggesting the ship they’d brought her aboard was much larger than the one her fellow Cyber-ninja may pursue in. She worried for them, not knowing who had survived, only that the fighting had continued after she’d been captured and that whatever had been below the sanctuary was stolen.

“What do we do with him?” the trooper holding her asked, seeming to address the organic in the red and gold armor.

“ _Her_ ,” Stabdash corrected. Yeah, she told herself, probably not the smartest idea to speak to the enemy at _all_ , but it just really fragging annoyed her when they got it wrong.

“What do we do with her?” The trooper – Stabdash thought she’d heard this one designated 643 – corrected.

“How do you tell?”

But, of course, Stabdash had gone and made the organic curious. “Slag me,” she groaned.

643 laughed, then shifted tone, as if responding to a superior, “I detect no difference; but since she-”

“Because the trooper understands I’m not a slaggin’ spark tourist! You want to ask these guys if they’re forged or not next? Ask the tan and violet one there what his alt-form is?”

“What does it mean ‘visiting spark’ or ‘smithed’?”

Stabdash saw the second trooper approach. She saw his hand move. She didn’t flinch, but rolled her head with the direction of the blow to lessen it such as she could. Thugs she could deal with. She was used to thugs. 643 held her tighter.

“I’ll explain later, Captain. We’ll find somewhere to put the prisoner until we get further orders.”

“Thank you, 573. Dismissed.” Stabdash peered outward with shutters slit over her optics. She wondered how the organics could tell the troopers apart.

“You can drop the political scrap,” 573 told Stabdash. The trooper glanced toward her, as she was carried by 643 along a dim corridor. “Don’t know how long you were on that rock with the ninja, but the war’s over. No one _cares_ out here.”

“No one cares anywhere,” 643 added.

“Cybertron’s controlled by neutrals who vote based on photogenics. There _is_ no struggle except the one to get media attention.”

“There _may_ be a few hold-outs on Dirt Planet.”

573 laughed, “Earth. You still drinking the social justice Yum-Yum Juice, you can beg to join their collective, until the organics remember what Decepticons _do_ to organic worlds.”

643 snorted a laugh.

Stabdash knew. She knew the old rhetoric. She was from Rigel IV. She knew what happened to those who seemed to turn against the faction. She’d even seen reports on the Autobot Megatron scandal.

The corridor opened onto a wider chamber where cages hung on chains from the trusses above. Gibbets? Who even used _gibbets_ anymore? “Do I _look_ like I need a lesson on Decepticon politics?” Acknowledging them, again, with a reply was possibly a lame stall tactic, and it didn’t even work.

573 knocked on one of the suspended cages and a door creaked open.

643 grabbed Stabdash with a grip about her waist and pushed her at the opening.

“Do we look like we need you to defend us?” 573 asked, rhetorically, Stabdash assumed.

Stabdash grabbed the bars and tried to push herself away from the cage.

643 used a second hand to push her forcibly into the cage, and then shut the door.

“We’ll send someone with fuel, later, but if I hear you insulting our allies, again, I’ll come back with a gag.”

Stabdash turned and held the bars of her cage as she looked between them. “Insulting? She asked ‘how can you tell?’”

Both troopers looked at each other and shrugged. “Can you tell us apart?” They both asked, together.

OK, she couldn’t.

“It’s easy,” one of them said, “He’s the Seeker fanbot.”

“And he likes small bots.”

“But not in a _weird_ way,” said the one Stabdash thought might be 643, as he held up his hands, “I just like them to sit inside me.”

“That _is_ weird,” Stabdash said, rolling optics.

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried.”

She knew what he meant, but Stabdash still wasn’t in a mood to play nice. “In case you missed it, I don’t have so much as a pilot’s seat.”

“Check yourself, _custom job_ ,” 573 warned, “You really think you’re the _only_ bot who feels they onlined in the wrong shell?”

_Honestly_? Yeah! Stabdash hadn’t known anyone like _her_ in Tarnish, or the refugee camps, or on Shinobu. It had taken her stellar cycles to feel OK with her alt-form, and that was after she got desperate enough to self-modify. And there’d _still_ been something wrong she didn’t know how to name, until she met another femme-bot.

“742 is still _really_ sure he should have been a laser pointer,” 643 said.

“And 113 – you nearly severed her legs today – is a _she_.”

Stabdash knew how _both_ felt.

She saw the troopers begin to walk away, back the way they’d come. “Yeah? Well, your tank buddy still killed my friend today! I hope she never walks!”

Sure, they’d been doing their job as much as she’d been doing hers. She’d been more than willing to kill them and call them cannon fodder, so she couldn’t righteously play the victim. And, when the troopers weren’t baited to return and argue any more, Stabdash sank down in her little bird cage and shuttered her optics.

She let out a wavering sigh. “I’m sorry, Ox,” she said, imagining he would somehow hear, though Stabdash wasn’t sure whether she believed in any Well or Pit or afterlife at all. Yoketron had sometimes spoken of _becoming one_ , but Stabdash thought that was because he was probably Autobot at spark and they had that ritual phrase. “Did I mess-up? I don’t know sometimes, with outsiders.”

She’d called him ‘friend’, but Stabdash had only considered Ox her friend for those last cycles. She wasn’t really good at friendship, not like Firepowder who was annoyingly open, helpful, and friendly. That’s why they were friends, because even if Stabdash said, ‘I want to be alone; I hate how helpful and friendly you are!’ Firepowder would still bring her some engex and ask about her training and share some amusing anecdote from her past.

“I’m sorry I thought you dim sometimes. I’m glad we talked and you and Arrow figured out the teamwork thing. Yoketron would be proud, you know? They’re probably having services for you now, and talking about how you died a hero. I’m sorry I stupidly got captured, but I always pegged you for the strong, heroic type, so maybe you wanted to go out the way you did.” Stabdash shrugged, “At least, you went fast, so you probably didn’t feel any pain.”

She laughed, not that anything about her situation was funny, but what was she supposed to do? Sob and wail in an enemy dungeon? She looked weak already.

Stabdash drew a meditative intake of air, how Master Yoketron had taught her to do when she was most angry or upset. She felt like she wasn’t alone, and turned to look over her shoulder. She couldn’t see anyone there, just shadows, cages, and the eerie green light from the corridor.

\--------------------

Moonshadow watched Radia fly off to retrieve Ox’s shell. That left her with the four Juniors – Artfire, Eagle Killer, X-Car, and Wicked Attack – and the remaining Seniors – Stormgale, Slipwire, and Firepowder. It was proper they tend the fallen, but they had little time to spare if they were to retrieve their charge.

“Artfire!”

“Yeah?” He jogged from the center of the courtyard where the group prepared to inter Master Yoketron in the void of the sanctuary.

“Take the _Skydancer_ from the _Karakuri_ and retrieve the novices.”

“Right- Well, I’ve never piloted the shuttle by myself.”

“We’ll all have to learn,” she said, but it remained he hadn’t learned yet. “Slipwire!”

She walked toward them, slinking around the edge of the remnant moat. “What’s up?”

“It’s Artfire’s responsibility to fetch the novices, but I need you to show him how to operate the _Skydancer_.”

Moonshadow saw Slipwire grimace, then look down at Artfire, who was just slightly shorter, with a grin. “It’s easy. The ship’s computer does most of the work.” She looked back to Moonshadow. “We’ll be back soon as we can.”

“Thank you.” Moonshadow was confident Slipwire understood the necessity for haste. She seemed to underplay her intelligence with her fan-worship of certain musicians and vehicle manufacturers, but Slipwire was observant and clever. It was one more difficulty of their situation that Slipwire and Artfire were the two most qualified to salvage what supplies may be left from the dojo, yet also the two most suited to retrieve the novices.

But these tasks couldn’t wait. Radia needed to go herself to bring back Ox, to feel she’d maintained honor, and similarly, Stormgale was not going to be dissuaded from her vigil or prayers over Yoketron.

Seeing that Slipwire and Artfire left, Moonshadow went back to the center of the courtyard, where the others were gathered.

“We’ll get them for what they did to Master Yoketron and Ox!” Wicked Attack swore.

“Our priority is to retrieve the tabernacle,” Moonshadow said firmly, “and, if possible, Stabdash.”

“Do you think they could have taken Counter Arrow?” Firepowder asked softly. Her smile seemed apologetic, not as bright as usual, possibly attempting to apologize on Wicked Attack’s behalf.

“It’s obvious what happened! Isn’t it?” The red racer asked. When no one else agreed it was obvious, Wicked Attack continued, “He’s run off because he’s the one who led them here!”

Moonshadow shook her head. “We don’t know that. We don’t know how they located the dojo, and it doesn’t matter anymore. Right now, Wicked, I need you to work with X-Car and salvage anything you can from the dojo. The organic materials went-up quickly, but if there’s anything we can use, blades…fire-proof containers…anything.”

“Even if the gear from the security station is damaged, we might be able to salvage raw materials to rebuild devices,” X-Car suggested.

“Anything we can use,” Moonshadow reiterated, “It all gets loaded on the _Karakuri_. There’s no reason to stay here if we’ve nothing to guard.”

As Moonshadow moved away, again, to see if there was anything she, herself, could salvage, Firepowder came after her. “You got a klik?”

“If you can talk as we move.” Moonshadow glanced up, as Firepowder fell into pace at her side. “Should probably take samples from the gardens, if you need them.”

“Of course-” Firepowder stopped, falling behind as Moonshadow continued on. “Adding that to my list,” she said, as she caught up, again. “Back there, it sounded like you saw our mission as one of duty or justice more than vengeance.”

“Duty,” she clarified, “I don’t claim to know what’s right or wrong in the larger sense.”

“Well, maybe I need to talk to Radia about this after all, but since you were the one that asked – I am certain Yoketron wasn’t murdered.”

“Was it something about his body?”

“Yes. Curiously, the evidence _suggests_ someone with basic medi-bot training attempted to _resuscitate_ his spark. And there were no fresh injuries beyond a few surface scuffs. But I _know_ he’d been sick; it’s why he invited me here.”

Moonshadow nodded. She was not surprised, at least not by the illness. “I noticed he was getting slower, delegating more.” She stopped near a rack of garden tools and glanced to Firepowder as she picked-up a rake. “I think Radia suspected, but Stormgale does not seem to have known.”

“Did something happen when I was away?” Firepowder whispered.

Moonshadow shook her head, rake handle still clutched in her hand, “Like what?”

“Stormgale. Were they _close_?”

Moonshadow had to process the question a few nanokliks. “Romantically? No. You know as well as I Master Yoketron encouraged _compassion for all, but duty above all_.”

“But he never forbid companionship, kinship, or affiliation.”

This was true. “Because, we must always have the choice. If our path, vows or sacrifices are absolutely mandated, then they are not truly our own, and any physical, spiritual, or intellectual gain is not truly earned, and may easily be lost.”

Firepowder’s expression looked unusually serious, for her. “Whatever our backgrounds, Master Yoketron gave each of us a choice.”

Moonshadow made a nod. “We are constantly faced with new challenges and choices. I believe, whatever you sense in Stormgale is result of a choice that is recent or soon to be made, as you may have before you some cycle. This has been a very trying time for us all. I choose to believe you will each choose what is best for all.”

\---------------------

 The final cycle of the automated decontamination process was a thorough drying of their skin with sonic air jets. As much as manuals promised this was safe, hygienic, and designed to feel like “massaging fingers”, Talleah always found it felt more like being poked at with invisible sticks. But, the way Kartika hissed sounded like she was in even more discomfort than Talleah, which was unusual.

Their backgrounds differed in that while Talleah’s tested aptitude with spatial reasoning and mathematics provided early opportunities to continue to build those skills, Kartika’s own inclination toward nature had led to activities that built physical strength and endurance. Both had been trained in the Femaxian martial arts; and both, now, were trusted servants of the First One, in space; but in the meantime, Kartika had been an athlete, outdoorswoman, and member of the guard; while Talleah had been merchant, diplomat and pilot. Talleah was used to thinking of Kartika as stronger, at least physically, and maybe in general.

“Did you take a wound?” Talleah asked. She saw Kartika lift her left hand to her right shoulder.

“I think it’s a chemical burn,” Kartika said over the air jets. She turned so that Talleah could see the raw skin on her right arm. It appeared in two patches, either side of her elbow, which Talleah understood must have been folded nearer each other when she raised her arm to shield her head.

“Why didn’t you tell me? We should have covered this until the end of the decon cycle, then cleansed it separately.” Talleah hit the manual override to end their current decontamination cycle, only moments short of finishing.

“That lunar soil seemed base enough to neutralize the acid and it was absorbent.”

“I wouldn’t have thought of it.” Talleah leaned in to look at the wounds. “Are you all right? If you request a doctor, we’ll have to go to one.” Talleah would have done it without a formal request, but what she really meant was that she’d tell Lockdown it was Femaxian law and he’d have to let her go until they were able to rendezvous again. It was true; Talleah was Captain and their leader in most respects while in space, but were they in the Golden Realm, Kartika would have been afforded greater status as a member of the Guard.

“It feels much better now the air has stopped,” Kartika said brightly, “I need nothing so formal, but you may help me wrap it lightly.”

“Of course.” Talleah opened the outer door and they crossed the narrow corridor and entered the opposite room where their clothes waited. She stepped into her silver mini-dress, and attempted to zip it herself, rather than ask her injured sister. Kartika wrested the pull from her, anyway, and zipped the dress. Talleah helped Kartika girdle her loose chiton.

When they were fully dressed, Talleah saw to bandaging Kartika’s right arm. “I’m afraid it may scar.”

“I hope they do not, but that female Cybertronian seemed a worthy adversary, though her weapon was cruel. I can carry the scars with pride; it’s not _man’s violence_.”

Talleah stilled her hands, momentarily. It was common parlance, that term, in Femaxian. “Scars mean we survived something,” she said. Any scars, in her mind, but she truly didn’t wish to elaborate at the moment. She finished tying-off the bandage.

Talleah went to the open doorway, as Kartika tried a few experimental arm curls.

“I’m tired, but I should go check with Lockdown to learn if he soon plans to meet with his clients. His _other_ clients.” He still had a task for the First One outstanding.

They exited the cabin aboard the _Widowmaker_ and walked through its cargo hold into the bay of the _Death’s Head_. Something felt off, but Talleah couldn’t place it immediately, and supposed she may simply be fatigued after battle. A couple of troopers were there, which was usual. Whether they were there to serve or spy, it did not matter to Talleah. She did nothing that truly needed to be secret from Lockdown, if he did order their deployment. However, it was just as likely the spying was more personal and opportunistic. She could not deny her own Femaxian sisters were just as curious about their alien business partners.

Talleah stepped off the ramp in her silver sandals, and the trooper who had been parked unfolded into a robot. This was still surprising, even after so long, and Talleah was convinced they didn’t even unfold their parts in the same order every time. She couldn’t tell these two apart – sometimes it was a scent, a sheen, a magnetic ornament, or a slightly different tint on their glass – so she supposed these might be the ones the Femaxians called ‘the twins’. “314?” She asked.

“Yes, Captain,” said the one she hadn’t been looking towards.

“And 227,” Talleah said, naming the second trooper. There seemed no one else about, and it was strangely quiet. “The ship’s not in transit?” she asked, certain now this was what had been bothering her. The large ship’s systems dampened inertia, but there was usually some sense of motion, plus the background noise of powered engines when the ship was accelerating or decelerating.

Talleah glanced to see if Kartika shared her concern. “It has not been too long, has it?” Kartika asked, “There were other injured to attend.”

Talleah began walking, calling back as she made her way to the interior passages. “Lockdown called retreat before the ninja’s ship was disabled. Any time we give them is time for them to follow. And if we don’t leave soon, our trail will still be here for them to follow.”

This _Death’s Head_ was massive. There were larger ships of course, whole floating cities and worlds. There were even massive cargo barges. But layout, or internal transit systems often made those easier to navigate. For whatever purposes, the interior of this old warship they’d been awarded was labyrinthine. Half a stellar cycle aboard and there were probably areas they still didn’t bother to use.

There was some sound coming from the medical bay and galley, but Talleah continued as directly as she could to the bridge. Lockdown was absent, as well as Venom, who had been placed in charge until his return. Not even the Nebulan was present, but instead the ones they called Blitzving and 742 – Talleah could tell by his tinted lamps, which he was clearing of pink foam with a brush.

“Why is the ship not moving?” Talleah demanded.

“Ve vere vondering ze same,” Blitz said. His accent sometimes confused Talleah’s translator and she had to pick out the recognizable words and guess the rest from context.

“And Venom? Or Lockdown?”

“I’ve not seen our captain,” Blitz said, “But Venom vas briefly in ze medical bay asking about Hardshell, who is no longer vith us.”

“He probably thinks we lost one of his team on purpose,” Kartika whispered.

Talleah nodded. She approached the forward display to check their position. “Blitz, you’re cleared for the bridge. We need to, at least, get out of line of sight with Shinobu.”

“Lockdown has not given me a heading nor placed me in command.”

“Has anyone seen Lockdown since we came aboard?” Talleah asked quietly.

“He never came to medical,” 742 said, “113 and Lugnut got structural damage, and the captain’s the one who best knows how to make repairs.”

Talleah consulted the display again, studying the Rigel System. “Blitz, where’s the nearest port where Decepticons can get repairs? Rigel IV Rigel III?”

“No, no. Ze quickest and quietest means vould be going to Rigel VI.”

“Very good. I assume command of the _Death’s Head_. Blitz, Seven, set our course for Rigel VI. Kartika, you stand watch for me here, while I go find our captain.”  

Talleah had an idea where to look. Lockdown sometimes made use of the Captain’s Quarters at the uppermost part of the central section, when he was not working elsewhere or aboard the _Red Swan_. The steeply climbing ramps and stairs were elements that seemed to show the ship had not originally been designed for a command crew of beings any larger than an average Cybertronian. The upper landing was narrow as well, with a single window.

The Nebulan was already here.

“Miss Captain of Femax,” he greeted her, sliding out of his perch in the window.

“He’s in there?”

“Our Hunter-Captain? Yes, but he does not wish to be disturbed.” He no longer wore the formal House Odessix rose and green robes, nor his battle costume, but what Talleah recognized as Nebulan street clothes with broad shoulders and asymmetrical seams. And then, on his feet, were raised sandals; these with the face paint and the burgundy, black and green colors chosen for his garments still identified him quite clearly as Lovetopian.

“I do not _wish_ to disturb him, but if he does not attend his ship and crew, we risk another confrontation with the ninja.” Talleah pounded a fist against the shut door.

There was no reply from Lockdown, but from within the sound of metal on metal crash carried to the hall.

“He’s been doing that,” Bandit said quietly, leaning against the wall, just aside the door. Talleah believed his face showed concern; curiously the black markings drawn on his face made his hairless, alien features easier for her to read. The pale orbs of his eyes, green in this light, often seemed indistinct in their expression. Whether this furrowed expression may be only for himself or for Lockdown, she did not know.

“Did you see him? Was he well?”

Bandit seemed to consider this, before lifting his head to answer. “Briefly. He was holding his hook over his chest.”

Talleah looked to the panel beside the door. It was unmodified from the simple touch panels preferred by the previous owners, so far as she could tell, yet when she struck it, the door did not open. “Lockdown,” she called, “You have Cybertronians in need of medical attention. I had no better choice but to assume command.” She waited, expecting him to be possessive and angry. There was no reply.

“This, too,” Bandit said, turning away.

“You really don’t know how to get in?”

He said something Talleah could not hear loudly enough to understand, and then continued, “I have an _idea_ how. You have to knock in a pattern. It’s something like,” Bandit whistled the tune: ♩♫♩♩ | ♩♩

Really? Talleah knocked at the panel. Nothing happened.

“Try again,” Bandit said, watching her now, “you almost got it.”

“You knew all this time?”

Talleah couldn’t read his expression, but it wasn’t pleased. “I can’t reach _and_ get the timing.” He probably would have had to hop.

Talleah knocked again. This time, the door slid aside, faintly lighting a path into a dark room.

\------------------

The dead were interred and kind words said over their resting place. Everything that could be salvaged from Shinobu had bee, including stores of energon, mineral water from the geyser basin, and compressed atmospheric gasses. Slipwire was pleased in particular that almost all their instruments and recording equipment had survived, no coincidentally, because the soundproofing tiles had been made from fireproof fibers. Moonshadow had said she would have preferred weapons, but Slipwire noticed her bagging sand and pebbles; she had saved what she truly most wanted. Even Stormgale was enduring the loss of many fine scarves by sewing salvaged pieces into the lengths she needed.

Now, they gathered within the Karakuri, with Radia standing before them on the steps between lower deck and bridge, Scryhook once again on her shoulder. Moonshadow stood beside Stormgale, quietly translating the sign language.

“OUR TEACHER TELL US BEFORE ‘YOU CHOOSE’, NOW,” Radia included them all in her sign, “WE TEACHERS, BUT I LEADER. I ASK YOU, ‘FOLLOW OR LEAVE WHICH?’”

“It’s still our choice,” Moonshadow said quietly.

“Would you mind repeating the latter part?” Kenzan asked, as he made the sign, “AGAIN.” The novices were still learning, and though Radia could have sent them text, or transmitted a database of signs, or just asked someone else to explain that this was a time when they each had to decide if the each wanted to be a Cyber-ninja, because obviously, their task was difficult, and there may very well be more losses. But, that wouldn’t help them learn for themselves, which was the way Master Yoketron had always pushed them to learn.

Slipwire watched as Radia stepped down and used combinations of gesture and touch to demonstrate her point. If the one hand represented Gekisou and the other hand represented herself, and one hand moved after the other to the same place, that was to follow. But, sometimes, as with personal signs they used to name each other, the sign meant more than just a vocabulary word, Slipwire thought. The hands were the same shape, like they were all the same in some ways, all Cyber-ninja. When Radia’s hands moved, it suggested there was a destination, a departure or a path where one followed the other.

To leave was to get up and move aside.

There was no ‘against’, here. The choice before them was to go together on this mission to fulfil their duty, or just step aside and let others go.

Radia waved, then tapped her foot on the floor to get the group’s attention. “YOU KNOW WE CYBER-NINJA PROTECT,” She signed to them, using the ‘secret’ sense of ‘HIDDEN-PERSON’ rather than the sign that meant physically concealed, as she would with the name of Shinobu, ‘HIDE-PLANET’. Slipwire understood Radia to be reminding them that they were not simply students of martial arts who were concealed by their location – although they were this, too – their duty was to the secrets they protected. “WE PROTECT WHAT?”

Slipwire looked around to see if others knew. Yoketron hadn’t told her, but she’d been learning to do maintenance on the tabernacle’s cold/vacuum storage system. There weren’t many types of things you would put in those and also count as a precious treasure.

She noticed the others looking around just the same. It was like they’d often shared before: Yoketron waited for his students to realize and then maybe told them they had the right idea.

“I know what it feels- felt like when I meditated in the sanctuary,” Stormgale said.

Moonshadow made a quick sign to Radia, “I KNOW.”

Slipwire noticed Radia’s hand-nod to her.

“Some of us know what kind of storage container the tabernacle is,” Artfire said.

Slipwire smirked at that.

“I know what Master Yoketron sometimes provided to others on his visits through the system,” Firepowder told them.

“It’s more important than any one of us, or Stabdash, apparently,” Wicked Attack added, glaring a bit toward Moonshadow.

Radia tilted her head. “SAME. SAME.”

“Wait, do you mean some of us were _born_ , because of Master Yoketron?” Slipwire asked. This felt like necessary information. Had he saved her from a prison because he was charitable, or because she showed talent, or because he’d known her before she ever came online?

“NO. NOT ALL. NO. I-DON’T-KNOW. PRIVATE.”

“Would knowing change any of your choices?” Moonshadow asked.

“It’s really sparks? In the tabernacle?” Artfire asked.

“THAT’S-RIGHT.”

“We must retrieve the sparks!” Gekisou said firmly.

“I ASK AGAIN. FOLLOW OR LEAVE WHICH?”

Moonshadow walked up onto the stairs

Stormgale followed immediately after.

“Count me in,” Artfire said.

Gekisou strode towards the stairs, flanked by Hishou and Sensui.

“You know I’m in,” Slipwire told Radia.

“I’m still a Cyber-ninja,” X-Car said.

Eagle Killer nodded and followed soon after.

Scryhook crowed and Radia reached up to stroke its wing.

“Our swords are at your service,” Kenzan said, and Jinbu and Ganoh came with him.

That left Firepowder and Wicked Attack.

“Friends, I admit to you I still have much spark-searching to do, but for _this_ mission, I am with you.”

“Hey, best for last,” Wicked Attack laughed. “Of course I’m _in_ , but I still want some payback for what they did to Ox!”

Radia went and laid her hands on the shoulders of these last two.

“Stations!” Moonshadow ordered, “Maintain your links to the battlenet and stay alert! Slipwire?”

“Yes!” Slipwire continued to report via their network, as she ran up onto the command bridge //There is a larger ship those two drop ships deployed from. Our first heading should be toward our neighboring moon.//

//There could be latent chemical trace there.// Firepowder suggested.

//Gravitational anomalies in their wake.// X-Car added.

The _Karakuri_ had its crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult for me to write. I rewrote certain parts over and over. And, it remains lengthy in comparison to others, and especially so for not having much action. I thought multiple times about just cutting segments. Does it need these brief, but troubling issues that weigh on the various characters? Do I have enough to show the characters are real or flawed or growing, without having too much to look like plot derailment? Do we need to know that the toopers show signs of individuality?
> 
> I'm glad I found this 'Recover' song. :)
> 
> Stuff:  
> -The novices are now definitely based on the Swordbot characters from Go!  
> -The Skydancer shuttle is pretty obvious homage, right?  
> -Wicked Attack's sudden suspicion of Counter Arrrow is prrrrobably for obvious reasons  
> -To clarify a bit more, they don't show Nebulans much in IDW, but I'm basing Bandit's appearance and street clothes on the civilian Nebulans in Stormbringer, as opposed to the space-tunic Mo Zarak is seen in Spotlight Ultra Magnus. The time period of these is kinda unclear to me.  
> -How much medical knowledge Lockdown has, and how he has it is pretty much wild extrapolation or head-canon at this point. IDW Lockdown is not one we know much about. We probably know more about Q Transformers Lockdown at this point (He has some ideas about things that are 'cute'. Why isn't he in a cute love triangle? He doesn't know.) 
> 
> I'm debating with myself whether I should include flashback scenes in the next chapter. Giving canon characters further backstory is not uncommon in fanfic, but since this is ongoing (and I didn't even get the the combiner part - such a headache) the more I build, the more it'll get jossed later (unless by magic I get invited to write Spotlights or somejunk).
> 
> Oh and...THANK YOU FOR READING! Every time I see even one more hit, I am so happy, because it means that evern with my crazy wall of tags - topes, locations - obvious use of original characters, and lack of ships YOU clicked through.


	7. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spotlight: Lockdown, featuring Stabdash. 
> 
> But seriously, Lockdown is out of sorts recollecting his time with Yoketron, while the _Death's Head_ flees Shinobu and head towards Rigel VI, pursued by the _Karakuri_. Stabdash remains in captivity, risking Simfur Syndrome. Brief details from the Juniors' past are shared. Lockdown is smarter than he pretends. And, Counter Arrow's fate is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> Blaqk Audio - Deconstructing Gods  
> Adele - Make You Feel My Love  
> AFI - Wild  
> Five Finger Death Punch - Wrong Side of Heaven

The memories came to him with gaps and blurs; the time-softened edges of degrading media. Lockdown had seen these loop so many times. The sensory data came whether he commanded the recollection or not, a subconscious reckoning that often came with fitful recharge.

“So you don’t even know him?” The Sergeant asked. Name wasn’t important. Autobot, though.

“That is not precisely true,” Yoketron said, “The communicube through which I received the call was originally my master’s. I do not believe your cadet was ever enrolled in our institution, however, I have _seen_ him.”

He’d been just that voice at first. Calm. Polite. Someone Lockdown might take advantage of, he thought.

“You think your err- _master_ will take him? He doesn’t have anyone else listed.”

“Many, including my master, left in the exodus, but, perhaps I may help.”

“I don’t think he has anywhere to go, but you should know, he’s already washed out of one school before this. I can’t just send soldiers to our new Prime untrained, especially after what he’s done.”

“Let us hope it never comes to that,” Yoketron said, “What other training does he have?”

“Says he was at the Iaconian Academy of Science and Technology. Don’t know what he’s done all the time since. Nothing licensed.”

“May I speak with him?”

Lockdown’s first impression had been underwhelming. It must have been. But always in the memories he viewed Yoketron in some light of retrospection and regret. Yoketron had a compact build, but Lockdown had been seated when they were introduced, so he _remembered_ someone who gazed down on him.

Yoketron had been clean, and exhibited good posture, but in Lockdown’s processor he was rendered as exceptionally radiant and graceful.

He looked familiar, like someone he’d met in passing, one or two million stellar cycles ago; before the disappearance.

“My name is Yoketron, I am teacher at the Cyber-ninja Dojo.”

“I mighta heard of it,” Lockdown said, trying to play it cool.

“A curious coincidence you carried our communicube among your personal effects.”

“Was holding onto it for someone.”

“Then it seems that one has brought us together. You’ve been expelled from the Autobot Academy, but if you still wish to learn to fight and to protect our future, then I have a place for you.”

He remembered being angry that ‘place’ meant sweeping the joint and trying to cotton what the slag the Wild Turbofox Cyber-Koan meant. And every time Yoketron beat him to the mats, it smarted, but it also gave him a little thrill; made him want to show the older mech he could do one better.

He hadn’t been ancient, not then, simply older. Old-fashioned, though. Simple tastes. Yoketron never added mass or reformatted with the trends.

Lockdown remembered he got better at blocking Yoketron’s attacks when they sparred at Tahib-tron or Laser Lathi. Didn’t care if it was sweeping that strengthened his servos, or some trick he learned, fighting to a draw felt good, winning felt better, but being back on the mats wasn’t bad, because it meant he knew just who and what he was going after next.

He remembered looking at the holograms in the sanctuary as Yoketron added his image among those who had come before.

“You recognize this one?”

“I know you don’t need to ask.” Another memory loop for another recharge cycle.

“A skilled sword fighter. His disappearance was- is quite a mystery. It would have happened when you were studying in Iacon?”

“No use being a medi-bot, when you can’t find a body. You need tracking equipment; sensor upgrades.”

“A bot needs no upgrades, if he is able to follow the directions of his spark.”

Lockdown remembered recharging on adjacent slabs. He remembered tea. Grappling ‘til he had Yoketron on the mats.

He remembered they progressed from stick fighting arts to the combination of spark control and blade techniques known as Metallikato. He remembered _feeling_ Yoketron near him. Remembered following his spark.

He remembered Yoketron severing his digits in what should have been a routine exercise.

Lockdown remembered being alone, injured, attempting to code pain receptors on the fly, and performing amateur surgery on his own arm. He remembered spilled fluids, and getting overcharged after the fact.

He remembered Yoketron’s absence. He remembered Yoketron’s return, and him kneeling, bowing, and begging forgiveness for loss of focus. He remembered how it felt to touch Yoketron with his hook. He remembered Yoketron holding him.

Which made it hurt more when he up and decided that he wasn’t cut out to be Lockdown’s teacher after all!

That last memory, when they’d parted, was riddled with lossiness, Lockdown had replayed it so many times. He didn’t rightly know anymore what they’d said, just that it’d hurt.

He onlined on a slab, remembering, clearly, that Talleah had been holding him. He didn’t recall lying down to recharge, just being huddled against the wall in the dark. He remembered her position coincidentally matching Yoketron’s, when Lockdown had been struggling to adjust to a new limb. He remembered, once, a long time ago, someone else had held him the same way.

But how the squishy female had managed it Lockdown wasn’t sure. He _remembered_ , but he didn’t quite grasp how she’d not cut herself on his armor spikes. He remembered soft hands on his head, and that she’d carefully drawn his faceplate toward her, and how his jaw spikes had pressed against organic flesh and bone, while completely missing soft spots and major circulatory vessels.

She’d said, “Just hold onto me; that’s something you can do, Lockdown.”

He must have started to brown out on her and fallen into stasis – emotional subroutines had been affecting his processor that much – but he had an awful suspicion he’d said some things he hadn’t meant anyone to hear.

“Talleah?”

But, it wasn’t Talleah weighing down his left arm. Fraggin’ Bandit was all curled around his vacant weapon port, like he was trying to be some kind of organic upgrade. He looked ridiculous, not pretty like Lockdown should be some ancient warlord in a story and want to cut off his own arm to preserve the man’s slumber.

“Get off. You smell!”

The little man’s face wrinkled and furrowed, then he shifted his limbs, and rolled to his back, releasing Lockdown’s arm. “Do not,” he said in sleepy Nebulanese.

Lockdown sat up, swinging his legs off the slab, and putting his back to Bandit. “I smell like _animal_ , now!”

“Not like I was the only one,” Bandit complained. Lockdown could hear him sniffing. “And it’s your fault, if I do. You know how much heavy lifting it takes cleaning up after someone your size?”

Lockdown huffed and scanned the side of the room not including Bandit. He knew he’d taken out a whole lot of pain and anger on the room. He didn’t keep many personal items up here, but it was where he kept actual business documents: trace evidence, maps, work orders, surveillance reports. He didn’t see any of that lying out. What he saw was Yoketron’s helmet on a console, and aside it, dwindling sticks of incense.

“You do that?”

“I wasn’t sure of the Cybertronian custom.”

“Custom for what?”

Bandit made some breathy noise, and Lockdown could hear him shifting, then his sandals scraping the slab, as he stood. “So you weren’t _grieving_ the loss of Yoketron?”

He definitely must have said some things he hadn’t meant to. Or, maybe the tantrum was a clue. Or, the part where he’d sat in the dark holding Yoketron’s helmet? Or, yanno, the hugging.

Couldn’t a bot want someone to just _hold_ him when his spark was _aching_ without being thought soft?!

Lockdown rolled his shoulders then made his posture straight as he could. He tapped at the comm mod on his gauntlet and ejected a small data chip. He flung it from his fingers toward Bandit, as he turned to leave the room.

The Lovetopian caught it in one hand, then turned it over to study, “What is it?”

“Custom usually calls for a holographic display.”

\------------------------

Stabdash stood in her gibbet one sword un-docked from her backpack and extended between the bars. She angled the blade, attempting to study in its polished surface the reflection of the outer material of the locking mechanism on her cage. It had looked like 573 had done nothing but hit the panel to make it open that first time, but when she tried, it remained locked. Slipwire would probably have known what type of sensor was within the panel at a glance, but this was unfortunately outside Stabdash’s area of expertise: Surprise Snark Courier Ninja.

She heard light feetfalls behind and stowed her sword. The sounds continued, curiously, from the opposite direction, and now were greater in number and accompanied by improperly greased wheels. “Ox,” she whispered, as she saw a pair of troopers approach. Stabdash leaned back against the bars opposite her cage door. She didn’t think they were the same troopers as before. The first one came carrying a tray; Stabdash could recognize a liquid form of energon at a distance. The second trooper she knew, in a sense.

She came toward Stabdash on a pair of crutches, legs literally held together with adhesive tape, and temp wheels on her boots to keep standing pressure minimized. She converted her right arm to a blaster and aimed it at Stabdash.

“420’s going to open the cage and give you your ration. If you leave the cage, I will shoot you.” It forced her to lean more heavily on one crutch, but Stabdash trusted her aim at range would be accurate enough to do real damage

Stabdash raised her hands; it also had the effect of putting her hands closer to drawing her swords. They hadn’t removed them, but she was being held by her own – somewhat default and former – faction, they would have seen it as cruel and unusual to remove weaponry integrated into an alt-form. About as cruel, probably, as severing a bot’s legs.

Better play nice, Stabdash told herself.

420 took one hand from the tray to hit the control panel on the gibbet. Stabdash only glanced, but it was enough to note he used the outer edge of his fist. It sounded like he could have hit it once, but it might have been twice in quick succession, which was something to test later.

The trooper put the tray down inside the cage, then re-closed the door.

“Leave us,” 113 told him. She moved a little closer, and Stabdash could see she had markings on the top of her faceplate that the other troopers did not.

“You’re not gonna, like, kill her?” Stabdash noted 420 seemed to have a particular, static-laced manner of vocalization that distinguished him from some of the others.

“She’ll be _alive_ ,” 113 promised. She sounded pretty similar to the rest of the troopers, with what might have been a pitch modification. Firepowder had offered to help Stabdash with her vocalizer, if she decided she wanted to change, but so far, Stabdash hadn’t felt right about it.

They waited for 420 to leave.

“I just wanted to see you,” 113 admitted.

Stabdash nodded, suddenly uncertain she wanted to speak.

“My designation is 113, but I would appreciate if you call me Wendy.”

Stabdash gave Wendy a questioning look.

“It’s from the Old Cybertronian. It means I go in a particular direction.”

Stabdash nodded. She hadn’t mean to question the name itself, just whether she might be the first one asked to call Wendy by this name.

Wendy sighed over-dramatically. “Finish your ration so I can take your tray.”

“Stabdash,” she said finally, “Courier. From Rigel IV. My serial number’s difficult to see in bot-form.”

“Did _you_ pick it?”

“Yeah, but maybe not why _you_ might expect. My original designation translated to something offensive in Rigellian.”

Wendy laughed. This was not an entirely uncommon occurrence with Cybertronians living among other species. “More offensive than _stabbing_?”

Stabdash laughed, though it was half-forced. “They hear it more as ‘cursory effort’ than ‘violently penetrate’.” Stabdash found it difficult to judge with the limited expression in the trooper faceplate, but Wendy’s silence seemed like disbelief. “I’m not changing it, again. I like my _name_. Wasn’t like I waited around for signatures. Not that kind of courier.” She shrugged.

Stabdash saw she had room to either crouch or kneel without moving her tray. Wendy was still talking, but Stabdash only half listened; something about legal name changes and legislation on the fly. It seemed something better saved for later thought as opposed to something a prisoner should betray interest in.

Stabdash felt like picking up the tray to balance it on her lap would somehow put her in a vulnerable position. She knelt beside the tray and sat back on her heels. It was a pretty standard type of ration: some engex, a few energon sticks, and an optional straw. The portion was small, but, whatever, Stabdash was low mass and a prisoner. She flipped a stick into her mouth, as she noticed the tray had a cute decoration on it.

Stabdash glanced up, tracking Wendy as best she could, visually and by spark-sense. Stabdash wasn’t as good at sensing sparks as some of her teammates, but she did appreciate a chance to practice. Wendy was stalking noisily about the gibbet on her crutches and wheels.

“Stop doing that, like I’m some specimen for study. Besides, you’re _barely_ ambulatory!” Stabdash pried the magnetic decoration from her tray as she sucked-in an additional length of energon stick.

“You _did_ this to me!” Wendy shouted.

Stabdash swallowed, then took a meditative intake. She was the prisoner here, and it was no time to lose her own cool. “It was not intended to be personal. You were strafing my friends.”

“That’s part of my job.”

Stabdash shrugged. “I was doing mine.” She glanced down at the decoration clinging to her left hand, as she reached for her drink. It looked like a common magnet cling, like organics used to identify vehicles used commercially or driven by trainees. It was like a sticky decal one might wear to show support for an artist or politician, yet with even less commitment. The image itself looked like a 2D illustration of a knotted ribbon.

Stabdash tipped her head to drink, then looked at Wendy over her little glass. She had two of these ribbons near the top of her faceplate, but they were small and silver. Experimentally, Stabdash touched the big purple ribbon decoration to the front of her helmet.

“You really _are_ tiny! Somehow you felt bigger when you were stabbing me!”

“I get that a lot,” Stabdash said, grinning.

“And your sense of humor _reeks_!” Wendy peeled one of the silver ribbons from her faceplate and offered it through the bars. As Stabdash reached for it, Wendy dropped it to her and quickly lifted her hand to snatch-back the larger purple decal. It made her crutch wobble, and probably put momentary pressure on her right leg. “You are a prisoner. You just get one. Not a whole sheet.”

“You have whole sheets of these things?” Stabdash asked, trying not to laugh.

“742 uses the office equipment. They are called bows, and they are very well made and useful,” Wendy insisted. Defensive much? Stabdash watched as Wendy held the large one to her head. “See, now I’m pretty and cute, but now…” she held the purple bow just below her neck, “I’m dapper and formal. And the little ones also fit here.” She shifted the little bow from her head to the corner of the purple brand on her chest.

Stabdash put her own small bow I the middle of her face, above her lip. But, then she remembered she’d told herself to play nice and moved the bow to the side of her helmet. She tossed the last energon stick to her mouth, then passed the tray and glass through the bars.

Wendy awkwardly took the tray and glass in one hand and walked painfully and noisily out on her crutches and wheels.

Not a bad visit, Stabdash thought. She had a straw, a magnet, a possible combination to her cage, the potential for legal assistance, and some intel on what manner of ship these Decepticons were flying.

“What do you think, Ox?” She whispered, tapping her new bow, “It’s like how Master Yoketron says to find balance, right? Thinking, ‘I should make myself more how others think my gender is,’ or, ‘I should help others understand _this_ is my gender, too.’ Everyone has to find their own balance. Sometimes, I think: frag labels, but…I _do_ get mad when people use one’s I don’t like. I guess, you need time to think about it. Go on. Got nothing but time, here, and you’re a good listener.”

\----------------------------

With all remaining Cyber-ninja aboard the _Karakuri_ , they had enough crew to put a more senior bot plus a trainee at each essential station and still leave a handful with off shifts. With Radia on the bridge, Moonshadow used her time to assemble an armory. To her, Radia’s abilities with data and communication made her seem practically designed for command and coordination aboard a space vessel – whether the intelligence behind that design was supernatural or just another bot Moonshadow didn’t dare guess, but she did generally believe in intelligence.

They had weapons and weapons parts sorted in whatever containers had been salvaged or already aboard the _Karakuri_ , and now all the ship’s quarters smelled like smoke. The fire was past, but its burnt scent lingered on all of their belongings, and now had spread through the atmospheric control systems.

Stormgale had already asked Firepowder about neutralizing the smell, and curiously, she’d put out pans of what _looked_ like burnt organic material to absorb the smell, but said she needed more ingredients to thoroughly remove the odor.

“Moonshadow, would you please add ball bearings to the list,” Stormgale asked. She sat on the floor at Moonshadow’s right side, hand converted to a small sewing machine as she stitched repairs and new weaponry into her scarves.  

“Stabdash would so make a joke right now,” Slipwire warbled quietly, from her seat atop the work counter. The room appeared to have once been a galley or laboratory, but in their rush to leave, no one had really planned where to dump their belongings as long as they were away from emergency walkways.

Moonshadow smiled, slightly, “Any particular kind of bearings?”

“Magnetic and corrosion resistant, please. Uniform size would be best.”

Moonshadow finished shaping the new handle for the sword she was restoring and re-tested her work with a final dry fit. “I don’t suppose we have any cordage?”

“I looked. No.”

“What about this?” Slipwire asked. She tossed a roll of tape across the room. Moonshadow caught it in her right hand. It was decorative adhesive tape with a hot pink and black animal stripe pattern.

Moonshadow shrugged. “I can work with this.” She drew a length of tape from the roll and began spinning it around itself to form twisted cord.

As she worked, Artfire and X-Car entered from the corridor. The blue and red bot carried what looked like a heavy, metal crate by its handles each side, as Artfire kicked some boxes out of his path. “Hey, we found a crate of guns!” Artfire told them.

“Where?” Slipwire asked, as X-Car heaved the crate up onto the counter.

“Master Yoketron did not even allow firearms,” Stormgale added.

“Radia assigned me to do a check of the _Skydancer_ ,” X-Car explained. Moonshadow knew, as well, that he had the most engineering skill; an efficient duty assignment. She stood to watch as he opened the crate.

“I think they’re _our_ guns,” Artfire said.

“Beam guns! A rifle!” Slipwire identified, “Pretty sure these are Cybertronian.”

“Our guns?” Stormgale asked, still listening from her seat on the floor.

“I mean us Juniors,” Artfire explained, “Yoketron found us all together.”

“We were prisoners,” X-Car stated, “He found us on a transport in cold stasis.”

“But something had been done to us,” Artfire said, putting a hand on X-Car’s near shoulder. “We knew who we were, and who each other were, and that we were Autobots fighting in the war, but not how we got on that ship, or who took us, or why.”

“Master Yoketron treated our history the same way,” Moonshadow said, turning and walking back toward Stormgale, “He let us talk about our past if we chose, but he didn’t share what he knew about us. He told us that we were all Cyber-ninja now, and our pasts didn’t matter at the dojo.”

“He must have put the weapons away should they provide clues about your past one cycle,” Stormgale guessed.

“I haven’t even practiced with fire arms in stellar cycles,” Artfire admitted. Moonshadow doubted any of them had. “I don’t feel like I _need_ them anymore.”

“You could sell them,” Slipwire said.

“The war’s over, supposedly,” X-Car said.

“If we’re looking to buy supplies along our way, and we’re not using them, it’s an option.”

“She’s right,” Artfire said. “Slipwire.” He gave her a nod. “But, it’s our option. Each of us.”

Firepowder returned to the room, having left earlier to look for further supplies.

“Wood glue?” Slipwire asked.

“No joy. But, Radia just sent Kenzan with a message. We’re at the edge of visual range of both Rigel VI and the black ship, and she’s uncertain whether our pursuit has been detected. Keep radio comms to a minimum, at least until she learns whether we’ve been scanned.”

“I don’t think we can go ship-to-ship with that thing,” Slipwire whispered.

\--------------------

Lockdown sat on the bridge of the _Death’s Head_ , leaning forward, elbows on knees, studying the viewscreen and holographic overlays. Rigel VI was before them, a smallish dust-ball of a planet between the homeworld of the whole gender spectrum of Rigelian society – with the single l – and the multi-mooned gas giants of the outer parts of the Rigel system. It didn’t have a high level of indigenous life, if any of the Rigellian worlds – organics on the inner planets preferred extra lateral whatchamacallit – could be said to have indigenous life. There’d been some level of civilization here as far back as Cybertronains knew, but most of the organic bipeds were probably invasive species, much as the Cybertronians were or the petro-rabbits fighting the turboworms for this dustball.

Rigel VI’s largest and only semi-legitimate spaceport was a place called Independence, best known for greasepits and trails into the wilderness. The kind of place a bot could get hurt, which also meant they likely had a few doctors. Lockdown had three crew that needed patching. Problem was these ninja.

His responsibility they’d caught-up so quickly. Still, Lockdown didn’t doubt he could take care of them; irritating thing about it was no one had a _contract_ on the Cyber-ninja. He knew their ship was there, and he reckoned they’d want to avoid ship-to-ship combat against the _Death’s Head_. That meant they’d try something sneaky, which in a sense, he respected. But, he didn’t _like_ it.

Lockdown barked an order over the ship-wide comm, “Venom, Talleah, get to the bridge.”

He went back to studying the overlays, gesturing at a selected layer to select: Contacts.

Talleah arrived first. Lockdown looked up as she stopped at the side of his chair. She kept her side to him as she studied the overlays. Maybe it was him imagining she was avoiding looking at him, because last they’d seen each other he’d been in a bad way; he almost wanted to avoid this. But, his avoiding his duty for a few cycles had put the pursuing ship as close as they were.

“Cold?” he asked, finally realizing what was different. She was covering more skin than usual.

She turned. No, Talleah took several steps that ended with her front facing him. Not the same. He’d missed a similar clue when he shouldn’t have; seeing how slow Yoketron had been to rise after every move. This was one of those _teachable moments_ the old Cyber-ninja had been so fond of, like when he made you sweep and dust the place when it wasn’t even dirty, so that finally when he came at you with a stick you just automatically blocked. After that, you were ready to learn to block on purpose.

Lockdown didn’t have too much in the way of formal learning, and he’d probably fallen for a few confidence games – if he were honest with himself – but he did learn from mistakes.

Talleah hadn’t left his quarters without injury. “Lockdown-” she started.

“Like the poncho, but you don’t need to dress for hostile terrain. I was gonna ask you to take the _Widowmaker_ into orbit, while I take a team planetside. You’ve more than proven yourself, and I could use a partner watching my ship from the outside.”

“Do you expect a move against the ship?”

Lockdown nodded. “They had at least one air-frame among them. Reckon they’ll try sending a small boarding party.” He scanned the interior of the bridge. “Where is Venom?”

“He was upset about Hardshell,” Talleah whispered.

“Blitz!”

“Aye, Sir?”

“You’ll be on the ship with full compliment of Troopers, except for Little Mama who’ll be with me. Tell them to patrol exterior and interior while I’m gone.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Lockdown stood, glancing briefly at Talleah as he walked past. He activated the comm unit on his arm, “Bandit, gear-up, you’re with me this time. Chop Shop, Ransack, Barrage, bring our injured to the _Red Swan_.”

Lockdown didn’t tell his crew, but he was entirely capable of tracking their positions by spark signatures, long as they were within a reasonably short range. He glanced at the holograph projected from his gauntlet and knew he’d find Venom near their prisoner.

Well, Lockdown wasn’t Captain of this crew for nothing. It was because the rest of them were _less_ qualified, really. It was a good system and played to the working class Decepticon ideal of being _mostly_ equal. Lockdown didn’t flaunt obscure knowledge, or reference ancient texts, or use medical jargon, because he was _mostly_ a fellow soldier. And when the crew were well behaved, he gave them every freedom and reward they deserved. Long as they did their jobs and honored contracts, they could do as they liked. Because that was what they were fighting for, right? Freedom and all that scrap.

Wasn’t lost on Lockdown that a lot of Decepticons, their supposed – possibly former – Supreme Leader included, had fallen away from that ideal, but he didn’t care. He really didn’t. Decepticons wanted to experiment with combiners, or make mass produced MTO troopers, throw bots into war untrained like Autobots, whatever. Yoketron would have been horrified. But, no science academy, or martial arts master or High Command had given Lockdown a crew. Might be the dregs of the faction, honestly, but it was his, and he’d take them.

He’d much rather be out here on the hunt for whatever other ‘Cons needed than be involved in that _mess_ on Cybertron. Kinda a shame that the Decepticons weren’t in much of a position to hire these days, but he had his freedom, a ship, a crew, fuel, upgrades, and he _looked good_.

This also meant that, right now, Venom was his responsibility. Bug tended to take every slight against him as a grand conspiracy. Learning through experience had taught Lockdown this – it might also have been in a file Banzaitron had given him, but that was beside the point. He learned it better his way, and experience had also taught him that the solution wasn’t so much to get Venom not to be paranoid, but to target his paranoia more constructively.

“Good, you’re here,” Lockdown said as he found Venom near the collection of hanging cages in the gibbet room – why they had such a room was another matter. “Have you asked Slapdash why the ninja were targeting our biggest bots first?”

Lockdown watched as the tiny bot’s mouth opened, and then slowly shut. Sometimes it was true he didn’t care to remember names, but misspeaking names tended to provide information, in any case. Stabdash was listening, and her – 113 had clearly been here with her bows – apparent meditation was an act to avoid engaging Venom.

Venom turned his head to one side and then the other, as if even now he feared others conspired to eavesdrop on their conversation. “Lugnut and Hardshell were both large…but there was a trooper.”

“Attacked by this here mini ‘Con.” Lockdown noticed a slight flinch. “Trooper must have seemed big, in relation.”

“They _targeted_ Hardshell.”

“I want you with me on this mission, Venom. I need someone I can trust who knows what to look for. Don’t want to say more in front of the prisoner.”

“I’ll go report- you know where.”

“Nice swords. Equal length. What are they? Trionium? Cybertitanium?” Lockdown leaned in close to the cage, but Stabdash kept up her fake meditation. “Did they inform you?” He asked then, “The old mech’s dead.”

That got the little ninja to open her optics, but to her credit, she was still putting effort into looking unaffected. There was the slow intake. Shutters closing and opening again. “Old mech?”

Lockdown was a _little_ confused. Was she questioning whether Yoketron were old, or whether Lockdown knew his name? Or, just pretending not to know either to get infor- “See what ya did there.”

“You in charge?”

“Could say that.”

“I want a lawyer.”

He laughed. “Seriously?”

“I’d ask for a faction rep, but I don’t trust I’d get an impartial party on your ship.”

“Fine.”

“Really?” Stabdash asked, tilting her head at him.

“You think I’m new at this game? Got a legal bounty on you. You want a lawyer to explain that? Let’s go.” He lifted his hook, but didn’t open the cage. “I’ll send someone with an inhibiter claw.”

\--------------------------------

As soon as the Captain left, Stabdash saw a white and blue bot appear as if from thin air, yellow visor dim and near-shuttered, a black and red arrow down his chest, and a rifle on his back. Counter Arrow lifted his right hand in a fist and hit the panel on Stabdash’s cage twice in quick succession. The door swung open and Stabdash jumped out, and right onto his chest. He put his hands to her backpack and head to hold her.

“Time we weren’t here,” Counter Arrow said.

Stabdash looked up at his face, at his mouthplate and visor, her own expression serious. She shook her head. “Yoketron would be so proud of you. I am _so_ proud of you right now, and I never get like this.” She felt stupidly emotional and relieved to be out of a cage and touching someone who was – she decided right now – her friend.

“Did you know?” He asked, and before she could answer, “Please, do not tell me you mean to stay!”

“Suspected. Increasingly suspected. But…” She pressed her lips into a grimace, “I wanted to pretend it could be Ox-”

“I was going to tell you,” Counter Arrow said, starting to speak before she had finished, “But when you kept saying his name, I didn’t want to stop you.”

Stabdash nodded, several times, quickly. Yes, yes, but they didn’t have time for this.

“Let’s just go.” He started to carry her away.

“Put me back.”

Counter Arrow moved back toward the cage, but Stabdash could feel his stress, in his body, and being this close, even in his spark, she thought.

Stabdash reached out and grasped the bars, and climbed back into the cage.

“Listen.”

“No, you listen,” he said, then bowed in apology. “I know you are my senior and a _real_ ninja, but I do not want to just leave you. I have been a captive before, and Ox, and I wasn’t there for him.”

“Counter Arrow,” Stabdash whispered, “I’m _glad_ you were here for me. If it comes to it, we each need to be willing to die for our cause, but that’s _not_ my plan. After this, I promise we’ll talk and _I’ll_ listen to _you_. Have you confirmed the location of the what-do-ya-call-it?”

“Not 100%, but I think it’s on one of the drop ships. The brown one.”

“What are your priorities?” Stabdash looked out past Counter Arrow, scanning for any approach. She hadn’t noticed any obvious surveillance devices in her time here.

“Gather Intel. Cover You. Watch for opportunity to escape.”

“ _New_ priorities. Quick!”

“Con-concealment,” the pressure was making him nervous, but these drills were the kind of thing Yoketron would have done to get them to think outside the construct or understand their duties. “Get the intel to our team. And- sabotage the ship to slow it.”

“Do you have technical knowledge to do that safely?” Stabdash didn’t think he did.

“Not propulsion, but-“

“Forget it. You hide. You get everything you know to our ninja. No hero Autobot scrap. Just ninja.”

“You-”

“Will not be the one deceived. Promise. Go. Now.” She pulled her cage door closed.

Stabdash could already hear the sound of conversion from alt-form nearby. Counter Arrow was out of sight by the time she saw the trooper approach with the claw in his hands. Stabdash didn’t recognize him, but she took a stab at guessing, anyway. “What? No Bad Cop this time?” She shook the bars of the door, in case the earlier sound had carried, as if she’d been struggling to get out all this time.

“Does that make me Good Cop?” 643 asked.

“Would you like to play Good Cop?”

He nodded, then opened the gibbet’s door as others had before.

Stabdash made herself giggle.

643’s vocalizer shifted to low register as he spoke to her, “This will go easier for you if you cooperate.”

Stabdash hesitated. This was the bot who had possibly _let_ her get close enough to take his spark in order to capture her. She needed to really check herself, like 573 had said, and not fall into the trap of believing the troopers dim-sparked cannon fodder, again.

“How do I know this isn’t a ploy to get me to ride inside you?”

He chuckled. “You don’t.” And then remembering he was Good Cop, “Just let me get the inhibiter claw on you and I promise I’ll let you walk as far as you want to.”

Of course, they both knew, the claw was going to sap her strength and prevent her taking alt-form or using weapons systems. Slag! Her plan better work, or she was going to regret not going with Counter Arrow.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now in complete headcanon area with Lockdown's backstory, though I'm both tying it into his story in other continuities, and doing the Spotlight thing, where his story overlaps with where we know some other characters were before (timeline errors are probably my fail):  
> \--He's just a little bit over 6 Million years old  
> \--He went to school with Ratchet and Orion Pax, for a little while (I'm guessing he doesn't like Ratchet, but he might, in a secret way, admire Orion/Optimus, or at least he's envious of him)  
> \--He lost someone he knew pre-Ark-launch  
> \--He was doing low-level medical technician work for a couple million years, being suitably functional and stuff, but he started being bothered by the idea that you couldn't use medicine to help missing people, became interested in tracking, and began self-modding  
> \--He attended the Autobot Academy at the same time as Hot Rod  
> \--When he was expelled from the Academy, Yoketron took him in  
> \--He was with Yoketron long enough to actually know some Metallikato, but he's probably not good with it or sword fighting.  
> \--Lockdown's memory is biased  
> \--Yoketron did take his hand  
> \--Lockdown either left or got kicked-out  
> \--He was recruited by Decepticons during war time  
> \--One past contact was Banzaitron, and probably he worked with Bludgeon at some point to inherit most of his crew (He probably confuses their names a lot)  
> \--He was probably already working with Bludgeon and/or Titan Hunters when he encountered Deadlock/Drift  
> \--He doesn't like Drift because he think's Drift's got some flawed and/or idealistic notions, particularly about factions and the war.  
> \--He really Does. Not. Care. Well, unless you're like his (or he thinks you are, because his feelings are not necessarily reciprocated by figures in his past), because then that effects him, and he cares about himself.


	8. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the frontier town of Independence, the crews split up to carry out multiple tasks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soundtrack:  
> Utada Hikaru - Colors  
> Placebo - Blind  
> (those first two mostly for space scenes)  
> Concrete Blonde - Mexican Moon & Everybody Knows  
> Five Finger Death Punch - House of the Rising Sun & Battle Born  
> Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows  
> (and these last two for certain characters)  
> Twenty One Pilots - Fairly Local  
> Bauhaus - Scopes  
> (that's a lot, and these probably continue into the next chapter)

Independence was little more than a spaceport. It had proper runways, landing pads, control towers, lights, fuel stores, and maintenance areas. This was evidence that peoples of technologically advanced civilizations visited, possibly exploited, or hid-out on the world, but that was it. It was a place one passed through on the way to somewhere else; a last stop before the sparsely-populated lunar colonies, stations, and mining facilities of the outer system.

Firepowder sat along a bench in the passenger cabin of the _Skydancer_ , while Slipwire guided Artfire through his communications with local control center. Across from her sat Moonshadow, back straight, a metal pole she’d been modifying held across her lap. Her expression was somehow more intense and brooding than usual; sometimes Firepowder wondered if her expressions only seemed colder because she didn’t color her lips. Now, though, she believed Moonshadow had been quiet since Radia selected her for their mission here.

The ship pitched suddenly!

“Not that far!” Slipwire called.

X-Car, who had been standing in the doorway between cockpit and cabin hopped into the cockpit, as Firepowder grabbed for the nearest handhold.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Artfire called back, as the _Skydancer_ began to level-off.

X-Car’s feet appeared to dangle through the open door as he remained sitting on the wall. Firepowder watched as he performed a series of rolls through the door and onto the cabin’s ceiling, until he stood alongside the central row of lights.

“We’re going to need to be inconspicuous,” Moonshadow stated as the shuttle came to a stop.

“The gravity thing?” X-Car asked, as did a quirky slow-motion flip to place his feet on the floor.

“A reasonable reaction to Artfire’s piloting skills,” Moonshadow said, as Artfire, followed by Slipwire, came from the cockpit. “It’s more than that. There hasn’t been time to discuss it amongst all of us, but the fact is that even those of us who Yoketron advanced to Senior Squad were students. We know our Cyber-ninja techniques, but we were protected at the dojo. We don’t have experienced being ninja in presence of outsiders.”

“I can go unseen, but if we’re here for supplies as well as information, someone needs to actually do the shopping. Unless-”

“There will be times when taking in stealth is the best way to fulfil our duty, but I am not asking you to steal, Slipwire.”

“Do we look to change our alt-modes?” Firepowder asked.

Moonshadow nodded, in acknowledgement more than agreement, Firepowder thought. She looked from one to the next. “A pair of street racing deco cars….”

“Firepowder’s got as many flames as I have!” Artfire insisted.

“More,” she said.

Beside her, Slipwire activated her holo-cloak which in this instance replaced her gold and silver deco with one of black and gold. “Better?”

Moonshadow nodded.

“That’s a new look,” Firepowder said, smiling; used to Slipwire being one of the more colorful to the point of painting fingertips and wearing decals.

“Old one, actually,” Slipwire quietly admitted.

“I can stay with the ship,” X-Car offered.

Moonshadow shook her head. “I mean, yes, I would like you on the shuttle, but because you are capable of quickly starting it later, and well-suited to hiding inside if anyone does come snooping.”

“If we were landing in a city a deco car would be a perfect ninja disguise for hiding in plain sight; how does a purple roadster stick out any less?”

“It doesn’t,” Moonshadow said, with slight annoyance. She stood up, and lifted her pole to her right shoulder. “You’re free to leave the ship, we need all the optics we can looking out for those thieves. Maybe we should split-up. It’s not that we _look_ like we’re a secret clan of Cyber-ninja, it’s that I don’t know what _else_ we look like that would explain why we’re all arriving together in a small settlement.”

“Rock band! We could be a rock band!” Slipwire told them.

“And what if they ask us to play? I don’t even play one instrument.”

“You sing, though.” Slipwire pointed a graphite-gray finger at Moonshadow. “Don’t even try to lie!”

“I do not lie.” Moonshadow pointed her own pale, gray finger, “And we are _not_ a rock band.” She stepped towards Firepowder and handed her a small data chip. “Take Slipwire and see about the supplies on the list. I’ll take Artfire and see if the locals know anything about the thieves.”

\---------------------

Stormgale hated space. She had liked it, once. Gazed out at the light and color painted across the void: stars, planets, moons, small bodies, and clouds of interstellar gas, and thought it beautiful. Now, the only color she saw was internal read-outs that appeared as shifting text and waveform. In space, there was no atmosphere to conduct sound, and her read-outs were like the featureless void.

There was no weather. There was no lift. No laminar or turbulent flow. No turbine wash.

There was no scent or taste to sample, but for a curious default like vaporized metal.

There was little to touch that you did not bring with you.

Radio sense remained. Stormgale ‘saw’ internal renderings of radio signal and reflection. She saw the _Karakuri_ behind and the ship like a gnarled crown ahead.

When in alt-form she received and interpreted flashes from laser comms, though the signals lacked all context not included in the message. If Jinbu did not include “Jinbu” in his flash, Stormgale might not have known he was sending.

Her spark sense remained.

Radar said Jinbu had an aerial profile like a fighter jet and that he was off her right wing, while Hishou had a the profile of a giant bird and was on her left. Their sparks were near, but not close. In practice, Jinbu would favor drawing a long sword, while Hishou used a tessen as shield or bludgeon. In movement classes, both showed grace, but Hishou better exhibited stillness.

Some of the Novices were not yet very ninja-like at all, being yet convinced that up-front attacks were more honorable and thus proper. The Juniors would have learned that their duty was more important than personal honor, even if they were not yet as capable in their stealth.

The idea that sometimes an individual’s dirty tactic and sacrifice of personal honor or glory was the best way to preserve the _group’s_ honor and fulfil their most-sacred duties and thus an honorable action was something Stormgale believed even Yoketron had struggled to accept.

Honor through dishonor? It was something that Stormgale, as Lovetopian, believed she understood. She could only hope to live to honor Yoketron or the many who died that Lovetopia functioned, because death could not return or give meaning to all those lives lost.

Yoketron was gone. Now they were all teachers as well as students. Stormgale’s great discomfort with space was nothing against the importance of their mission.

When they neared the opposing ship’s tall nacelle in its orbital orientation, Stormgale new its range only as a number among her internal read-outs. She reached unfolded to bot-form and reached out to catch herself against the structure.

Now, Hishou and Jinbu blended with the radar rendering of the larger structure. She knew their presence only as near and still generally to her sides.

Jinbu and Hishou would have little problem communicating with each other, even if they went fully radio silent. Similar to the way in which Radia had taught others manual signs, and Stormgale herself was willing to help others improve their Hand, the Novices had brought with them a system of manual flash text using reflections of light off their weapons.

Stormgale had only had it described to her.

“SPLIT” she signed to them. She knew how to make some of the signs they used frequently, but she could only learn them with someone else teaching her the hand shapes and movements. Sometimes their squad had sat in a circle outside passing whispered words, signs, and Hand to each other. Often the message got humorously garbled, but they’d all become more fluent. After Kenzan had arrived, he’d asked one cycle why they liked clapping games so much.

Stormgale smiled to remember it. Kenzan was getting much better at Hand.

Stormgale felt the sparks retreat from her. At a certain distance, it became difficult to detect presences without being in deep concentration, and this was not a safe place for such inward focus.

Stormgale descended the nacelle, navigating by touch.

As she reached a plateau, her radar rendering showed large-scale change.

Somewhere to her left, where Hishou might be, a pair of drop ships resolved against the void of internal renderings. Stormgale’s exterior lighting was dimmed as a matter of practice, but she checked her systems to confirm, as she maintained a still posture and willed herself unnoticed.

She didn’t fear for herself, not really, but the thought that Hishou could be shot to death and she had no way of sensing it bothered her. Responsible, but unable to constantly supervise. If there were systematic or random violence that you knew was there, then you could begin an attempt to process. But being unaware was a different horror. Stormgale would almost rather be complicit than be unaware a horror took place.

That was why they took her sight. To make the details vague so that it was always even worse than she thought. And then they quietly banished her, so that she could live but not know what stayed the same or changed. Disappeared her so those remaining could only imagine her fate.

She questioned her own interpretation of what had happened to Yoketron. She knew the others did.

The rendered signals told Stormgale the ships were moving away and in different directions. She remained still, scanning, until she detected a shift in the overall silhouette that she recognized as Hishou’s head and wingtips rising slightly above the superstructure.

Stormgale went back to surveying the exterior, searching for access to interior compartments or systems they might sabotage.

\---------------------------

The _Red Swan_ landed and Ban wrestled himself out of his makeshift safety restraints and slid off the edge of the seat and dropped to the floor below. Lockdown was already at the ramp before it fully extended and Ban ran on his raised sandals to catch him. He hadn’t said much, but maybe the absence of mocking or refusals meant Ban had gotten his outfit right this time. He had a tank of air and a small breathing mask, as he knew Rigel VI to be more hostile than poisonous, and otherwise dressed in layers against the cold and wind-grit.

“Don’t run,” Lockdown said quietly, “makes you look…little…like you’re trying too hard.”

Ban considered this. Running was a common action for Nebulans when Cybertronians were about; usually running _away_. And, a rapid shuffle was considered part of good service in Lovetopia, because it showed one made effort to please and could handle the current height of their shoes. Yet, elites got to the point where they needed assistance to walk, and were _elite_.

He was with Lockdown, now. He looked up from beneath the shadow of his wide, conical hat, “I’ll try to do a cool stride, like you.”

Lockdown would probably have argued, except that Ban was saying he looked cool, so he smirked and nodded instead. Reading a guest or elite in order to please or impress them had been a survival skill on Lovetopia. Ban already knew Lockdown liked affirmation of his aesthetic mods but that compliments needed to be blended with a certain amount of bluff-calling in order to avoid being stepped on.

Lockdown partially descended the ramp and seemed to survey their surroundings before turning to address the crew. “Chop Shop, you fly behind me. Resta ya stay put ‘til I talk to the Doc.” He paused. “Stabdash, don’t make me pick you up.”

The small Cybertronian hopped from her seat, a restraining claw of some sort inhibiting her upper arm movement and probably dampening her power somehow. She walked slowly toward the ramp, as behind her Chop Shop _transformed_ then _mass-shifted_ \- those terms were already common in Nebulanese, though sometimes Cybertronians themselves used alternate slang or euphemism for the words they’d taught.

“Bandit. Your job is to watch our bounty head.” Lockdown handed Ban a remote device, which to him felt about the size of a slightly antiquated mobile device. “If she’s trouble, you can shut her down or give her a jolt.”

“You mean it’s my responsibility to do so,” Ban said as he studied the symbols on the remote.

Stabdash tilted her head, and her eyes – _optics_ if she preferred – shuttered in an expression that Ban recognized as questioning, though she didn’t have those brow pieces some did. “May you ascend to the most elite,” she said, pronouncing the Lovetopian ritual phrase in the Rigellian dialect in which it was most formally recited.

Ban did not believe Stabdash was Lovetopian, only that she was repeating a phrase she had heard in order to learn his preferred language. He’d been implanted with a translator chip in Lovetopia, which was how he understood Cybertronians when they spoke to each other, but even on Nebulos Decepticons had seemed to make threats in his language. He was pretty sure their super-robot _brain modules_ assimilated language almost instantly. Then, their _vocalizers_ synthesized the phonemes as they’d heard them. Sometimes the process gave them confusing regional accents.

Ban bowed. “Mr. Ban Drib of House Lockdown nee Odessix nee Gyconi of Nebulos City. You may call me Bandit, if that’s easier.” He said it in Rigellian, which he’d learned after ending up in Lovetopia.

“Mx. Courier Decepticon Stabdash of Tarnish, Rigel IV.” She bowed. Curious she used a neuter title, but her speech suggested she knew very well what she was saying. She knew the customary naming order used in Lovetopia. Ban wondered if Lockdown knew some of the Cyber-ninja were Lovetopian; Stabdash had to have spent time with at least one.

“No battle or _Cybertronian_ city name?” Ban asked. Usually they had those in formal introductions.

Lockdown sighed. “C’mon, let’s go,” he told them.

Stabdash didn’t move, but as close as she was – an arm’s reach – Ban could see shifting in her optics as she looked from his face to his hands then back. “Apparently, I’m what comes after a planet goes Phase 6.”

“I understand.” Ban pressed the button to electrify the claw, and made himself keep watching as Stabdash twitched. There were sparks and smoke and a weird smell like vaporized metal.

Stabdash remained standing, knees together, but feet spread, body bent forward. “Don’t usually boost of approving,” she said in a rasp and might have laughed.

“She’s fine,” Lockdown insisted.

Ban heard that sound and was disappointed that when he turned fully toward the bottom of the ramp, Lockdown was already in his _alt-mode_ , or whatever term they preferred these days. Ban knew that another time, if Lockdown had not just given him this duty to mind a prisoner, and he had not been certain testing the remote was necessary to assert his position, he would have been really excited. As much as it was true he _knew_ Cybertronians had nearly destroyed Nebulan civilization several times over, there was still part of him that found them undeniably cool.

“Go!” he said to Stabdash.

She sucked in air then blew it out. It looked suspiciously like breathing, though Ban was certain it wasn’t necessary for her kind. Finally, she straightened as much as the claw allowed and began walking down the ramp. She grinned at him as she passed, “Two former houses. Were you won in a game of chance, or did you frag-up and have to start again from the _bottom_?” Those weren’t the only ways it could have happened, but they were they were some of the most demeaning, and one was true.

“You would have made an excellent Happiness Facilitator, Mx. Stabdash,” Ban said politely. He’d learned to keep his voice formal and polite under stress, but he realized his hand on the remote was shaking.

“Bandit!”

He strode slowly down the ramp. Lockdown’s own fault for telling him not to run, right? He wanted to touch the door that was open to him, because that would be a normal part to touch, and Lockdown _looked_ like a hot car he’d like to touch.

Ban didn’t let himself reach out. Instead he moved around the edge of the door and ducked inside. Stabdash was already sitting with her feet up on the dash, and her seat and belts were already moving to stop her. “No grabby hands, or feet!” Lockdown said as a vocal indicator flashed. Ban had never been able to see _inside_ a Cybertronian before. Ban didn’t expect the red coloring; he’d thought other times the tinted windows were what gave brief glimpses of interior their warm color, but Lockdown had a vivid red interior trimmed in black and tan, with chromed metal on his wheel, stick, and dials.

Lockdown closed the door on him. Ban sucked for air from his tank, as if a lack were the cause of his unease, then let the mask drop to his shoulder. As soon as his back settled against the seat, safety belts snaked around him and clicked closed. The hand on the remote trembled still, and Ban balled his other in a fist, not sure he was allowed to touch anything.

“First time?” Stabdash asked.

Ban nodded. Better they think he was in awe of the custom interior than shaken by mere performance of duty. It was just, he realized, he hadn’t had to be the one causing the physical harm in a while, and somehow it was easier to do it when it was your life or another’s; survival instinct kicked in. It wasn’t that complicity through knowingly letting other’s do the dirty work was better, but that way avoided specific sensory triggers.

The belt across his chest seemed to tighten, maybe it did. Dust spun up outside the windows as Lockdown’s engine roared into function. Inertia pressed Ban into the upholstery as they sped over dirt road between spaceport proper and nearby settlement between two jagged mesas.

“Why do you _have_ passenger space?” Ban whispered.

“You mean why does he have a _car_ alt?” Stabdash corrected, loudly, “So he can chauffeur around all the laser pointers and microscopes and memory slugs.”

“Mini ‘Con’s not even _from_ Cybertron,” Lockdown argued, “My alt-mode is _fine_. Let’s me restrain pesky little bounty heads instead of having to drag them behind.”

Ban laughed, not feeling quite as tense as before. “Doesn’t it feel…?” He didn’t know what word to add there. “Having someone inside you?”

“You tell us,” Stabdash said, “Isn’t getting inside each other all you organic races think about?”

Point taken. “Well, maybe not in the same _ways_ ,” Ban laughed.

He felt a force against his body as Lockdown’s rear wheels suddenly slid out to one side and he spun over 90 degrees to a halt in front of some building Ban could barely identify for all the dust.

“Aft!” Stabdash shouted.

“See, nothing wrong with my alt.” Lockdown popped his doors, and then the seat-belt loosened.

Ban was shaking, but it was good shaking, because they’d just done a scary-awesome thing!

“No more wild-riding. Time to get out.”

Ban swung his legs out first. As he stood, he ran his fingers over the interior of the open door. A moment later, a hand unfolded from the door, which was in the process of converting to an arm. Ban was held by the giant robotic fingers as Lockdown finished his transition to his primary mode. It was more exciting and several times scarier than just riding inside him; Ban might have screamed.

Lockdown’s head rose as his roof became his chest. He fixed Ban with a warning gaze. “Don’t push it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of-”

“’M not your _car_.”

Ban smiled as disarmingly as he could. “Of course not. You’re _more_ than my car.”

\------------------

The general store stocked a mix of necessary staples and novelty trinkets to remind passers-through of their time in the Rigel system. The bin of Black Shadow toys sitting atop the refrigerated cabinet of Lovetopian Yum-Yum Juice was in really bad taste, Slipwire thought. She lifted one of the small poseable robots and carried it across the shop interior to the pay station, where Firepowder discussed their supply order with their clerk, Chroma.

“I have most of what you need on-hand. I need to check on the amount of sulphur,” Chroma said, “but I’m not sure about these: sour wine, organic fertilizers.”

Slipwire shifted her grasp on the Black Shadow toy to pick-up two scale model rocket cycles from a tray on the counter. “Look, they have me!”

Firepowder put a hand on her shoulder, but appeared to keep her focus on Chroma. “Whatever you can do for us, I appreciate. If you can put our order aside, I’ll call my friends to bring our payment.”

“It’ll just take a little time to pull stock. I try to keep mineral pigments in the store, but the more common colors don’t stay log, what with the greasepits.”

“Firepowder here’s really interested in mixing paint,” Slipwire gesturing with two toy cycles in her hand, as she stashed the Black Shadow in a thigh compartment.

Firepowder smiled tightly. “Do you know anyone else in town who might have what we need?”

“Don’t know as I can vouch for his work, but you might try the Professor at the buffer shop. He’s always claiming to have a cure for whatever ails you.”

“That gives me so much _confidence_ ,” Slipwire whispered.

“Thanks again for all your help,” Firepowder said. She made a friendly wave. “See you later.”

Slipwire walked first to the door, past the metal drums, shelves, and pegs displaying wares. The street was dusty as she exited, as if someone had driven by recently. A car had spun-out, from the tracks. She looked down the street and identified the traditional striped buffer’s pole. She glanced to Firepowder and tipped her head toward their next destination.

“You took one of the toys, didn’t you?”

“It’s not for me.”

“Stabdash,” said Firepowder. That had been obvious. She ranted about that guy more than other Rigellians, and he’d solely ruined their civilization. “She’ll probably just burn it.”

“Which is why we shouldn’t waste energon on buying it, besides I didn’t see a sign identifying proceeds go to charity.”

Slipwire pushed open the door to the buffer shop. She didn’t see anyone attending the shop, but noted the stations for painting, waxing, and buffing with related tools. She did the old Buff and a Wax Coat knock on the open door: ♩♫♩♩.

No answer came right away, so Slipwire moved to the retail shelf of personal care items. There were trays and trays of tiny jars and bottles of Professor Slick’s _Accoutrements de la Maintenance Personnel_ labeled in _fancy_ Cybecois dialect.

“Guiding Holy Hand! They have my shade of graphite powder!” Slipwire grabbed the little jar and allowed herself a moment of giddy squeeing over the cosmetics. “This must be where the Sheriff got her blue enamel!” Products like these were a rare luxury to her, though she’d made good use of paints organic Rigellians made for their belongings, and Firepowder’s concoctions.

 _Thump_ , _thump_. The belated reply to her knock sounded from the back of the shop.

“Hello,” Firepowder said.

Slipwire peered around the display shelf, but quickly darted back as she heard the reply. “How may I be of service?” It was the voice she recognized, the particular filtered sounds vocalization played through an external speaker, vaguely tinny, like a cheap set of headphones.

“My names Firepowder. Chroma recommended you. Said you might possibly have some vinegar on hand, or some organic fertilizers.”

Slipwire carefully and quietly placed the little jar back on the shelf and crouched lower behind the shop fixtures. Of all the worlds, someone she’d known on Rigel III had to be here. She wasn’t actually sure how a reunion would go, seeing as how she’d been nearly on her way to a holding cell last they’d been together. The fact that she was wearing her old deco didn’t help any.

“Removing rust from delicate parts?” Asked that calm, sciencey-like voice.

Firepowder sounded unfazed by the question. “Sour wine would be good for that, yes, but I’d like some for its odor neutralizing capability.”

Slipwire shook her head. These two had a lot in common, apart from being her friends.

“An excellent cleaning agent, deodorizer, disinfectant, and degreaser.”

Slipwire sent a text to Firepowder. //Act casual. This bot might be one who would recognize me from Rigel III. Get what we need, but don’t mention me.//

“You really know your stuff,” Firepowder said brightly, “Can you show me some of your stock. Oh! What about turboworm castings? I’ve heard they have useful properties.”

Assuming they were paying attention to each other, Slipwire quietly stepped toward the door, then walked out onto the street.

\-----------------------------

The visit to the Sherriff’s office hadn’t given Stabdash much hope that she’d find any legal loophole that would turn Lockdown’s hold on her from legal bounty collecting to abduction and trafficking over interplanetary boundaries, but that had been a slim hope from the start. Her real reasons for wanting to visit a lawyer was playing a whole different hunch.

But, she had found Sherriff Strongarm and Deputy Howlback _interesting_. Lockdown had been more interested in who shot the late Sherriff Coaltrain to put the “spunky” Autobot in charge, but Stabdash already had her own mysteries to solve.

Strongarm reminded her of Firepowder in some ways, but it might just have been they were ‘Bots; friendly trucks were their _thing_. Right? Stabdash hadn’t met _real_ Autobots before Yoketron brought the Juniors or Firepowder to Shinobu, and she wasn’t even sure they counted, as Ox and the others had been vague about whether they actually waged battle against any Decepticon forces.

“Do you think I should add some blue to my deco?” Stabdash asked, mainly to see how Bandit answered.

“Were you thinking you could use more contrast?” he asked, which Stabdash took as the polite Lovetopian way of saying, “let me call an Aesthetics Consultant, because you need some color.”

“Something like that.” She wasn’t going to decide _anything_ based on how Lockdown’s lackey answered, but at the same time, she was curious, and asking questions had the secondary effect of putting the not-prisoner on the spot. “Maybe green?” she asked with a grin.

“White?” Bandit asked in return, but it became rhetorical as he continued, “this looks like the place.”

The sign along the small storefront was written in Rigellian and Cybertronian characters: Liberty & Valence Attorneys-at-Law. Stabdash found she couldn’t reach the panel with the clamp reducing her arm movement, so she kicked at the door.

Shortly, the door was opened from within, though Stabdash didn’t see anyone immediately inside. Further back into the spiffy interior, with pressed paneling on the walls and wood and metal furnishings cluttered with datapads, Stabdash saw a Cyberhawk alight on the back of a chair, and then at separate desks two of the fanciest dudes she’d ever seen, like bots right out of some pre-war archival recording.

Both stood and walked toward them, only to gesture towards chairs. “Not often we get visitors from Nebulos,” the larger one said, but even being so, he was no bigger than a bot with a car alt, and closer in apparent mass to Moonshadow, rather than Lockdown. Not a car, though, as far as Stabdash could tell.

“Would you believe I’m an astronaut from an experimental craft that fell through a wormhole?” Bandit asked; it sounded like a joke, but Stabdash had just gotten used to him speaking to her in Rigellian and he was speaking Nebulanese to the lawyers. The humor didn’t convey very well as her translator protocols were lagged by the switch.

Stabdash gave the man a sidewise glare, suspecting he might be clever enough to know how translation tech worked.

“No.” Said the smaller one, who was slender and lacking any remotely vehicular parts. Stabdash supposed he might have some instrument alt, for the dials and tubes on his person. He – though Stabdash wasn’t so certain about this one – stooped slightly to peer at Bandit. “You’ve come from Lovetopia.”

Bandit shrugged. “Followed a band there once. Name’s Bandit. I’m what you might call a bounty hunter.”

Stabdash turned her faceplate and tried not to laugh.

“Valence,” said the slender one, “and this gentle-bot is my partner Liberty. Oh, and Hevel, our paralegal.” Valence gestured to the hawk.

“My bounty head,” Bandit said. He took a data pad from inside his outer robe and passed it to Valence, who in turn passed it to Liberty. “Decepticon Stabdash of Tarnish, Rigel IV. She’s requested an attorney.”

“Criminal law is not our specialty,” Liberty told them, looking up, briefly, from the pad, through thick goggles. “Please, sit, let us see if we cannot be of assistance.” He walked back towards his desk, still reading.

Bandit climbed up into a chair near Liberty’s desk.

“I can’t,” Stabdash whispered.

Valence pulled a stepstool out from under a console table and slid it toward a vacant chair. At least, Stabdash thought, no one tried to lift her. She stepped up, then turned about to drop into the seat. “The rheostat is turned up fairly high.”

“What?” Bandit asked.

Valence took a seat near his desk and swiveled his chair so that he faced the group. “Full disclosure, I am more sensitive to electrical currents than the average bot and as a function of that, voltage, to some extent. The inhibitor claw has a strength setting.”

Pretty sciencey for a lawyer, Stabdash thought.

“Stabdash is lethal and a fight risk.”

“Hey! I didn’t _kill_ anyone!” She could, but she hadn’t.

“Anyway, she’s literally flight capable if not in the claw.”

“First things first,” Liberty said, “Valence and myself are licensed to practice law throughout the Rigel System, and on Cybertron, and any of its occupied territory, under Xaaron Approved terms, unless specifically stated otherwise by Code of Interplanetary Conduct; we may represent clients in dealings with Galactic Council affiliated worlds. Communications are privileged and confidential and will be recorded.” The legalese went on a while longer, and Stabdash wondered if Liberty would be the better one to answer her questions, though Valence seemed nicer.

“I am most well versed in matters of interstellar trade law,” Liberty said then, “Valence handles all our Intellectual Property cases.”

“I need advice on more than one matter,” Stabdash said, “But I can’t talk in front of my guard.”

At that, Valence extended a plastic card to her. Stabdash’s optics automatically scanned the black and white pattern and she identified the code and coded content: his private comm channel.

Stabdash saw Liberty and Valence nod and gesture to each other, possibly having switched to a private conversation. //Valence?//

//Yes, Stabdash.//

//So, first of all, I used to courier documents to the legal assistance offices within the camps on Rigel IV, so I kinda know how lawyers work. You keep pretty much everything on manual update, right? Lots of hardcopies. So, if, say, I heard someone was editing portions of Cybertronian law on the fly, there’d still be all these copies of law text saved so someone could know what the laws are, or were?”

Valence smiled, but then, pressed his lips tight as he glanced toward Liberty a moment. Stabdash received his comm when he looked back to her. //If there were ever such an incident, rest assured there are procedures should any potentially illegal tampering take place, however, we will argue whichever law favors our client must apply.//

\----------------------

Artfire had only heard about greasepits. When he first heard the term, he thought it sounded like a really bad oil house, but they were literally pits of refuse where bots or beasts got tossed to fight or die. Independence was known for somewhat organized pit fighting, or that’s what the roughly etched signs claimed: Famous Independence Greasepits – Rivalry in Rigel – Turboworms vs Cloudsquids.

Artfire’s proximity sensors alerted him to the fact that Moonshadow pulled over then braked, which he realized was smart, because he could have rear-ended her driving into the dust trail. He applied his own brakes, then converted from his alt-mode as he heard Moonshadow do the same at his right side.

Artfire caught a flash of reflected light on polished metal as Moonshadow reassembled her staff upon converting. “Is that-?”

“Yes,” she said, not waiting for the question or explaining further. She held the pole in her right hand so that it appeared now she was using it to support her weight while walking. He didn’t think it was, though; the stick barely touched the ground and didn’t leave a mark in the dirt.

The air carried an unfamiliar stench here, as they approached a line of stakes and rope. Moonshadow zig-zagged like she was trying to avoid target lock, so Artfire did the same. He didn’t scan any surveillance, though he could see a grouping of shacks and a few people the far side of the nearest pit.

Moonshadow looked to be heading for the biggest bot there, a black-armored behemoth easily the size of that purple one they’d taken down at the dojo, but one of the others stepped out to stop her.

“Not here for you,” Moonshadow said.

Artfire lifted his hands before him, aware that it looked like an offer of surrender, when it also made it easier for him to shape fire.

“We don’t know you,” the smaller, white-armored mech said; he seemed to be a similar frame type to Stormgale.

“Him.” Moonshadow said, with a small toss of her head in the direction of the big bot.

“Champ’s not seein’ anybot ‘til the Doc gets back,” the lanky gray one said.

“He’ll see me, if you ask him.”

They didn’t ask. The white one reached to put his hands on Moonshadow and she put an elbow in his shoulder before he could get a hold. As he twisted to shield his injured side, Moonshadow spun one end of her staff into the back of his legs. He didn’t fall, but the bot swayed, then caught his balance and hopped away. His broad boots made that sweep less effective than it would have been on others; Artfire told himself to remember to look for that kind of thing in the future.

Moonshadow walked on toward the so-called Champ.

Artfire followed, glaring at the gray one, “Don’t even think about it.”

The big bot seemed to notice them then. He stood up from his seat near a farther pit, converted to a type of airship Artfire didn’t immediately recognize, then unfolded again just in front of them. He was even bigger than Artfire had estimated, and ugly. Or, maybe he was one of those Insecticons?

“Cord? Is that you?”

“It’s Moonshadow now.”

“Where?”

“Blackout, it’s me.” Moonshadow sighed. “Cord. I don’t often go by that name anymore.”

“Really?” Artfire asked, standing at Moonshadow’s right side.

She showed him her open hand, not wanting to talk about it.

The big guy, Blackout, leaned in toward Artfire. “You got a problem little bot?”

“His name’s Artfire. He’s a friend, like you,” Moonshadow said.

Artfire grinned as he held up his hands, again. “See? All friends here.” First time Moonshadow had _said_ it, but it seemed right. He’d thought of her only as his senior at the dojo, for a long time, but when Master Yoketron started including him in some of the higher level discussions and assigned them to work together, Moonshadow had started to seem more a _person_ than a figure to emulate.

“Where were you? Coaltrain said the worms got you.”

Moonshadow seemed to hesitate, then, “No,” she said, “I met a teacher and went to learn from him. But, now, I need your help.”

“Do you need me to pretend fight? The Doctor doesn’t like me to, unless he says.”

“No, no, but you could wave your arms or something, so those bots don’t know we’re friendly. They new?”

Blackout leaned toward Moonshadow and shook his arms. Then he lifted one foot and Moonshadow hopped backward, after which Blackout put his foot down gently. “Slinger and Rider came to help Coaltrain explain to bots why we should have rail here,” he told them, “but not everyone wanted it. Now, they just work the pits.”

“There’s a bot that took something from us,” Moonshadow said, then held her staff outward as if in anticipation of blocking.

“Tall, dark, and spiky, with a mean right hook,” Artfire added.

“That’s Lockdown,” Blackout answered, “The Doctor went to meet him.”

Moonshadow nodded. “What’s he like? Where’s he from?”

“He finds things,” Blackout said then shook a fist at Artfire, which he didn’t have to pretend to flinch from.

“That was pretend,” he whispered.

Moonshadow shook her head. “Finds things…?”

“They say he’s _from_ Cybertron, but he moves around on ships. The Professor knows him, too. Finds people or things, but if you’re not Decepticon High Command, it’ll cost you.”

Artfire saw Moonshadow turn her face toward him. “For hire. So he has to deliver what he finds.”

“Did The Doctor hire him?”

“Lockdown contacted _us_ , about his injured crew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> -It probably seems that not much happened, because the teams were so split that it takes many pages to cover even a short scene for each group. This won't be the case for too long, I hope.  
> -I, obviously, did not know James Best was going to die soon, when I started writing this chapter and homaged his character in Dukes of Hazard here as "Coaltrain". RIP Mr Best.  
> -As of publication of MTMTE 39, this fic is now at least slightly jossed, as Bacchus has been on Deathsaurus' Warworld in actual continuity, while I had him appear on Rigel IV in an earlier chapter.  
> -Other homage characters to appear in Independence: RiD15 Strongarm in a similar role as a Sheriff, G1 Howlback as a Deputy, 'Aligned' Chroma as a storekeeper, G1 Slingshot/Quickslinger (or his "brother" since he's presumed dead in canon for now) as a thug called Slinger, G1 Wildrider/Brakeneck (or his "brother") as a thug called Rider, Animated Blackout (who's more canonically the dim one as opposed to Movie Blackout) as a pit fighter, Animated Scalpel as The Doctor, Animated Oil Slick as Professor Slick.  
> -Liberty and Valence are named for the Western movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, which is about a lawyer from back East who moved to a small Western town and who may or may not have shot a thug named Liberty Valence. They are scopes who practice law. They are fancy, steampunk-lookin dude-bots. Liberty is a telescope and Valence is a galvanoscope.  
> -Their assistant Hevel is named for the astronomer Johannes Hevelius who invented the polemoscope, and does convert from a hawk into a polemoscope.  
> -Scalpel does (will) have a microscope alt, but he is a doctor, not a lawyer.

**Author's Note:**

> concrit accepted.


End file.
